“General Arnold, I have advanced you $3000! I have undertaken the Holker enterprise for your benefit! I have arranged to secure you twenty thousand pounds for the delivery of West Point! I have even secured for you the assurance of a General’s commission in His Majesty’s service, and all that has been asked of you is to deliver West Point! Now you ask me to advance more of His Majesty’s funds? No, sir, not until you have done more of your part. You must secure West Point!” The man who had suffered the privations and starvation of an expedition at the head of a half-clad army to capture Quebec in mid-winter, and never lost heart, now quailed before this ostentation of money. He hung his head and in half-choking tones he arose and said: “I have written to General Washington, and I may hear from him very soon. I do hope that you can help me.” As Arnold finished the last sentence, he walked out of the rooms of Roderick Barclugh with the most forlorn expression. His chin was resting on his breast as he walked to his home, there, maybe, to receive another imperious demand for money. CHAPTER XXVII “General Arnold, I can not and shall not be subjected to these miserable indignities any longer,” exclaimed Mrs. Arnold, as she hysterically left her husband at the breakfast table and went to her bed-chamber. On the day after Barclugh had arrived in Philadelphia, the Commander of the town had been presented with the demands for the servants’ wages, bills for two gowns, and pay for the oysters and fish from Sven Svenson, by his wife at breakfast, and his reply was: “My dear, I have no money to-day.” Arnold was brave in the midst of battle, but in the presence of an imperious and unreasoning wife he was an abject coward. A look from his wife was a command to Arnold, and he allowed his domestic expenses to ruin him and drive him into desperation, because he did not dare to curb within his means an unreasonably extravagant woman. After Mrs. Arnold, in a fit of temper, had left her husband, Arnold arose in dismay, then sat down dejectedly in his chair. His brow was wrinkled; his eyes wore an expression of the fox, driven to bay; his frame shook with anguish; his hands clenched his hair; and he sought relief mentally, by reasoning out his situation to himself: “My love for my wife causeth me to do foolish things, but I can not deny her anything that pleases her. Her very look is a command to me. When we married I thought our position demanded a country-seat, and I bought it. When she asked for a carriage and postilion, I furnished them. When she wished to dine her friends of the Tory party, I consented.