There was going to be a wild and emotional reconciliation.
Was there?
It seemed like something fearful and imminent.

A passion arose in him, a craving for the violent emotional reconciliation.

He waited impatiently for the children to be gone to bed, gnawed with restless desire.
He heard the clock strike nine, then half-past, from the village behind.
The children would be asleep.

His wife was sitting sewing some little frock.

He went lingering down the garden path, stooping to lift the fallen carnations, to see how they were.