ss did revive a little,
nevertheless it seemed as though the interruption to his prosperity had
in some way broken the spell of good luck which had attended him in the
outset; he was still sanguine, however, and worked night and day with a
will, but there was no more music, or reading, or writing now. His
Sunday outings were put a stop to, and but for the first floor being let
to myself, he would have lost his citadel there too, but he seldom used
it, for Ellen had to wait more and more upon the baby, and, as a
consequence, Ernest had to wait more and more upon Ellen.

One afternoon, about a couple of months after the baby had been born, and
just as my unhappy hero was beginning to feel more hopeful and therefore
better able to bear his burdens, he returned from a sale, and found Ellen
in the same hysterical condition that he had found her in in the spring.
She said she was again with child, and Ernest still believed her.

All the troubles of the preceding six months began again then and there,
and grew worse and worse continually. Money did not come in quickly, for
Ellen cheated him by keeping it back, and dealing improperly with the
goods he bought. When it did come in she got it out of him as before on
pretexts which it seemed inhuman to inquire into. It was always the same
story. By and by a new feature began to show itself. Ernest had
inherited his father's punctuality and exactness as regards money; he
liked to know the worst of what he had to pay at once; he hated having
expenses sprung upon him which if not foreseen might and ought to have
been so, but now bills began to be brought to him for things ordered by
Ellen without his knowledge, or for which he had already given her the
money. This was awful, and even Ernest turned. When he remonstrated
with her--not for having bought the things, but for having said nothing
to him about the moneys being owing--Ellen met him with hysteria and
there was a scene. She had now pretty well forgotten the hard times she
had known when she had been on her own resources and reproached him
downright with having married her--on that moment the scales fell from
Ernest's eyes as they had fallen when Towneley had said, "No, no, no." He
said nothing, but he woke up once for all to the fact that he had made a
mistake in marrying. A touch had again come which had revealed him to
himself.

He went upstairs to the disused citadel, flung himself into the
arm-chair, and covered