"I am ashamed to say."
"Fifteen hundred dollars?"
"They have never fallen below that since we were married, and, for the last three years, have reached the sum of two thousand dollars. This year they will even exceed that."
Wilkinson shook his head.
"Too much! too much!"
"I know it is. A man in my circumstances has no right to expend even half that sum. Why, five hundred dollars a year less in our expenses since we were married would have left me a capital of five thousand dollars in my business."
"And placed you now on the sure road to fortune."
"Undoubtedly."
"Take my advice, and give to Cara a full statement of your affairs. Do it at once—this very day. It has been put off too long already. Let there be no reserve—no holding back—no concealment. Do it calmly, mildly, yet earnestly, and my word for it, she will join you, heart and hand, in any measure of reform and safety that you may propose. She were less than a woman, a wife, and a mother, not to do so. You wrong her by doubt."
"Perhaps I do," said Ellis in reply. "Perhaps I have never managed her rightly. I know that I am quick to get out of patience with her, if she oppose my wishes too strongly. But I will try and overcome this. There is too much at stake just now."