Explore "The Mother's Recompense" by Edith Wharton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Chris Fenno stood in the drawing-room. The servant who received him had turned on a blast of lamps and wall-lights, and in the hard overhead glare he looked drawn and worn, like a man recovering from severe illness. His clothes, too, Kate fancied, were shabbier; everything in his appearance showed a decline, a defeat.
She had not much believed in his illness when Nollie spoke of it; the old habit of incredulity was too strong in her. But now his appearance moved her. She felt herself responsible, almost guilty. But for her folly, she thought, he might have been standing before her with a high head, on easy terms with the world.