"Is all this true?"
"As true as you live and breathe."
"And it is my fault?"
"I am sorry that I cannot say otherwise." There was a good deal of feeling in the husband's tone as he made this reply. "I need not relate how I strove to convince you that I could not afford to build such a house—that to sell my warehouse property, in order to do so, would be to rob myself of at least seven or eight thousand dollars—for that property would inevitably increase in value this amount in the next five years. Already it has been sold at an advance of three thousand dollars on what I received for it. I need not relate how unhappy you made both yourself and me, until I consented to do as you wished. It is all within your remembrance. A man cannot stand every thing. I had trouble enough, even then, with my business—but found no compensation at home. In a desperate mood, I resolved to make home pleasant, if possible. I made the sacrifice, and here is the result!"
Mrs. Tompkins wept bitterly when her husband ceased speaking. Every word went to her heart. She saw her folly, nay, her crime, in having acted as she had done. She was a weak, vain woman, but not all perverted. Notwithstanding rank weeds had long overgrown the garden of her mind, some plants of goodly promise yet remained.
On the next day, without hesitating a moment, Mr. Tompkins went to a real-estate broker, and employed him to sell his house as quickly as possible. He mentioned this to his wife, as a thing of course, and suggested the necessity of disposing of their splendid furniture, and retiring from their too prominent position in the social world.
"There is but one way of safety and peace," he said, "and that way we must take, whether the entrance to it be smooth or thorny."
"Why need we sell our handsome furniture?" asked Mrs. Tompkins, in a hoarse voice.
"For the same reason that we have for selling our house," firmly returned her husband—"because it is necessary."
Mr. Tompkins spoke so decidedly, that his wife felt that remonstrance would be unavailing. Having once admitted the truth of all he had alleged, she had no ground for opposition. Completely subdued, she became altogether passive, and left her husband to do just as he pleased. The pressing nature of his affairs made him prompt to carry out all the reforms he had proposed. In less than a week he found a purchaser for his house, and was able to sell it on tolerably fair terms. The real-estate agent who had made the sale for him, had left his store but a short time after communicating all the preliminaries of the transaction, when old Wolford entered with a slow gait and a look of resolution.