“Sometimes from fifteen to twenty cents.”
“He’ll need to earn more, I can tell you that. I’m very poor, Ellen, and cursed unfortunate, too. I haven’t money enough to buy a ten cent cigar.”
“I will try to support the children if you will take care of yourself, James.”
Any man with a spark of true manhood in him would have been shamed by such a proposition, but James Barclay was a thoroughly selfish man. It seemed to him that his wife ought to support him, too.
“Have you got a dollar about you, Ellen?” he asked.
“Ye-es,” she answered, hesitatingly, “but I must buy some bread and groceries this evening, or the children won’t have their supper.”
“Seems to me you care more about the children than you do about your husband. A pretty wife you are!”
“I don’t deserve that, James. Of course you are welcome to your share of the supper.”
“Thank you! So you want to treat me as a child.”
The man was utterly unreasonable, and his wife can hardly be blamed if there rose in her mind a regret that he had not stayed away longer, and left her and the children in peace.