Money not come in
quickly, for Ellen cheated him by keeping it back, and dealing
improperly with the goods he bought. When it did come in she got it
out of him as before on pretexts which it seemed inhuman to enquire
into. It was always the same story. By-and-by a new feature began to
show itself. Ernest had inherited his father's punctuality and
exactness as regards money; he liked to know the worst of what he
had to pay at once; he hated having expenses sprung upon him which
if not foreseen might and ought to have been so, but now bills began
to be brought to him for things ordered by Ellen without his
knowledge, or for which he had already given her the money. This was
awful, and even Ernest turned. When he remonstrated with her- not
for having bought the things, but for having said nothing to him about
the money's being owing -Ellen met him with hysteria and there was a
scene. She had now pretty well forgotten the hard times she had
known when she had been on her own resources and reproached him
downright with having married her- on that moment the scales fell from
Ernest's eyes as they had fallen when Towneley had said, "No, no, no."
He said nothing, but he woke up once for all to the fact that he had
made a mistake in marrying.
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