Willa Cather 
The Professor’s House [EPUB ebook] 

Professor Godfrey St. Peter doesn’t like the new direction that his life has taken. When he and his wife move into their new house, he decides to keep his study at the old house so that he will not have to let go of the way life used to be. After a gas leak, causing a near death experience, that he almost welcomed, he realizes that he needs to find a new way to cope.