At length, one morning, the new carpet was sent home and put down.  It was a beautiful carpet; but, as Mrs. Ellis stood looking upon it, after the upholsterer had departed, she found none of the pleasure she anticipated.

“Oh, why, why, why did I do this?” she murmured.  “Why was I tempted to such an act of folly?”

Gradually the new carpet faded from the eyes of Mrs. Ellis, and she saw only the troubled face of her husband.  It was within an hour of dinner-time, and in painful suspense she waited his arrival.  Various plans for subduing the excitement which she saw would be created in his mind, and for reconciling him to the expense of the carpets, were thought over by Mrs. Ellis:  among those was a proposition that he should give a note for the bill, which she would pay, when it matured, out of savings from her weekly allowance of money.

“I can and will do it,” said Mrs. Ellis, resolutely:  her thought dwelt longer and longer on this suggestion.  “I hope he will not be too angry to listen to what I have to say, when he comes home and sees the carpet.  He’s rather hasty sometimes.”

While in the midst of such thoughts, Mrs. Ellis, who had left the parlour, heard the shutting of the street-door, and the tread of her husband in the passage.  Glancing at the timepiece on the mantel, she saw that it was half an hour earlier than he usually came home.  Eagerly she bent her ear to listen.  All was soon still.  He had entered the rooms below, or paused on the threshold.  A few breathless moments passed, then a smothered exclamation was heard, followed by two or three heavy foot-falls and the jarring of the outer door.  Mr. Ellis had left the house!

“Gone!  What does it mean?” exclaimed Mrs. Ellis, striking her hands together, while a strange uneasiness fell upon her heart.  A long time she sat listening for sounds of his return; but she waited in vain.  It was fully an hour past their usual time for dining, when she sat down to the table with her children, but not to partake of food herself.  Leaving Mrs. Ellis to pass the remainder of that unhappy day with her own troubled and upbraiding thoughts, we will return to her husband, and see how it fares with him.

CHAPTER XIX.

For hours after his wife had sunk into the forgetfulness of sleep, Ellis lay awake, pondering over the ways and means by which he was to meet his engagements for the next day, which, exclusive of Carlton’s demand, were in the neighbourhood of a thousand dollars.  During the previous two weeks, he had paid a good deal of money, but he was really but little better off therefor, the money so paid having been mainly procured through temporary loans from business friends.  Most of it he had promised to return on the morrow.  Earnestly as the mind of Ellis dwelt on the subject, he was not able to devise the means of getting safely through the next day.