Yet why should I say this?
Am I not man enough to keep sober?
Yes"-- thus he went on talking to himself--"but if she will not act in some sort of unity with me, I shall be ruined in my business.

It will never do to maintain our present expensive mode of living; and she will never hear to a change." Just at this moment an angry exclamation from the lips of Mrs.Ellis came sharply on the ears of her husband, followed by the whipping and crying of one of the children, who had, as far as Ellis could gather, from what was said, overset his mother's work-basket.
"No use for me to go in there," muttered the unhappy man.

"I shall only increase the storm; and I've had storms enough!" So he went from the chamber by way of the passage, descended to the entry below, and, taking up his hat, left the house.
Now, of all things in the world, in the peculiar state of body and mind in which Ellis then was, did he want a good strong cup of coffee at his own table, and a kind, forbearing, loving wife to set it before him.
These would have given to his body and to his mind just what both needed, for the trials and temptations of the day; and they would have saved him, at least for the day, perhaps for life; for the pivot upon which the whole of a man's future destiny turns is often small, and scarcely noticed.
As Ellis stepped from his door, and received the fresh air upon his face and in his lungs, he was instantly conscious of a want in his system, and a craving for something to supply that want.

Having taken no breakfast, the feeling was not to be wondered at.

Ellis understood its meaning, in part, and took the nearest way to an eating-house where he ordered something to eat.