.

Then came the odious task of getting rid of their unhappy mother.
Ernest's heart smote him at the notion of the shock the break-up would be
to her. He was always thinking that people had a claim upon him for some
inestimable service they had rendered him, or for some irreparable
mischief done to them by himself; the case however was so clear, that
Ernest's scruples did not offer serious resistance.

I did not see why he should have the pain of another interview with his
wife, so I got Mr Ottery to manage the whole business. It turned out
that we need not have harrowed ourselves so much about the agony of mind
which Ellen would suffer on becoming an outcast again. Ernest saw Mrs
Richards, the neighbour who had called him down on the night when he had
first discovered his wife's drunkenness, and got from her some details of
Ellen's opinions upon the matter. She did not seem in the least
conscience-stricken; she said: "Thank goodness, at last!" And although
aware that her marriage was not a valid one, evidently regarded this as a
mere detail which it would not be worth anybody's while to go into more
particularly. As regards his breaking with her, she said it was a good
job both for him and for her.

"This life," she continued, "don't suit me. Ernest is too good for me;
he wants a woman as shall be a bit better than me, and I want a man that
shall be a bit worse than him. We should have got on all very well if we
had not lived together as married folks, but I've been used to have a
little place of my own, however small, for a many years, and I don't want
Ernest, or any other man, always hanging about it. Besides he is too
steady: his being in prison hasn't done him a bit of good--he's just as
grave as those as have never been in prison at all, and he never swears
nor curses, come what may; it makes me afeared of him, and therefore I
drink the worse. What us poor girls wants is not to be jumped up all of
a sudden and made honest women of; this is too much for us and throws us
off our perch; what we wants is a regular friend or two, who'll just keep
us from starving, and force us to be good for a bit together now and
again. That's about as much as we can stand. He may have the children;
he can do better for them than I can; and as for his money, he may give
it or keep it as he likes, he's never done me any harm, and I shall let
him alone; but if he means me to have it, I suppose I'd better have
it."--And hav