After the third christening, however, he came to the conclusion that matters were serious and started playing his old game with the inevitable results: doctor, sick-leave, riding-exercise, port! But there must be an end of it, at all costs. Every time the balance-sheet showed a deficit.
But when, finally, his whole nervous system went out of joint, he let nature have her own way. Immediately expenses went up and he was beset with difficulties.
He was not a poor man, it is true, but on the other hand he was not blest with too many of this world’s riches.
“To tell you the truth, old girl,” he said to his wife, “it will be the same old story over again.”
“I am afraid it will, my dear,” replied the poor woman, who, in addition to her duties as a mother, had to do the whole work of the house now.
After the birth of her fourth child, the work grew too hard for her and a nursemaid had to be engaged.
“Now it must stop,” avowed the disconsolate husband. “This must be the last.”
Poverty looked in at the door. The foundations on which the house was built were tottering.
And thus, at the age of thirty, in the very prime of their life, the young husband and wife found themselves condemned to celibacy. He grew moody, his complexion became grey and his eyes lost their lustre. Her rich beauty faded, her fine figure wasted away, and she suffered all the sorrows of a mother who sees her children growing up in poverty and rags.
One day, as she was standing in the kitchen, frying herrings, a neighbour called in for a friendly chat.