Like most novel readers of his generation (and Soames was a great novel reader), literature coloured his view of life; and he had imbibed the belief that it was only a question of time.

In the end the husband always gained the affection of his wife. Even in those cases⁠—a class of book he was not very fond of⁠—which ended in tragedy, the wife always died with poignant regrets on her lips, or if it were the husband who died⁠—unpleasant thought⁠—threw herself on his body in an agony of remorse.