Chapter 18

TO Ellis the trials of the next two weeks were of the severest character. Yet, he kept himself away from drinking-houses, and struggled manfully to retain his feet under him. In this he was only sustained by the kindness of his wife's manner, and the interest she seemed to feel in him. Had she acted towards him with her usual want of affectionate consideration, he would have fallen under the heavy burdens that rested upon him. Scarcely a day passed in which he was not visited by Carlton's agent, and fretted almost past endurance by his importunities. But he steadily refused to take up any of the due-bills; at the same time that he promised to cancel them at some future period. This did not, of course, suit the gambler, who sent threats of an immediate resort to legal proceedings.

Of all this Cara knew nothing; yet she could not help seeing that her husband was troubled, and this caused her to muse on what she had done with increasing uneasiness. She no longer took any pleasure in the thoughts of new parlour carpets. But it was too late, now, to retrace her steps of error. The carpets were already in the hands of the upholsterers, and a few days would see them on the floor.

"I must tell him about them," said Cara to herself, about a week after her act of folly, as she sat, towards the close of day, brooding over what she had done. "To be forewarned is to be forearmed. In a few days the carpets will be sent home, and then"--

A slight inward shudder was felt by Cara, as she paused, with the sentence unfinished.

"But I'm foolish," she added, recovering herself, "very foolish. Why need I be so afraid of Henry? I have some freedom of action left--some right of choice. These were not all yielded in our marriage. His will was not made the imperative law of all my actions. No--no. And here lies the ground of difference between us. The fact is, he is to blame for this very thing, for he drove me to it."

But such thoughts did not satisfy the mind of Mrs. Ellis, nor remove the sense of wrong that oppressed her spirit. So, in a little while, she came back to her resolution to tell her husband, on that very evening, all about what she had done. This was her state of mind, when her friend Mrs. Claxton called in. After the first pleasant greeting, the lady, assuming a slight gravity of manner, said--

"Do you know, Mrs. Ellis, that I've thought a good deal about the matter we talked of the last time I saw you?"

"To what do you allude?" asked Cara.

"To running up bills without your husband's knowledge. All men are not alike, and Mr. Ellis might not take it so easily as Mr. Claxton has done. The fact is, I have been checked off a little, so to speak, within a day or two, and it has rather set me to thinking"

"In what way?" inquired Mrs. Ellis.

"I will tell you--but,