The evening that followed was one of suffering for Mary, the beginning of a martyrdom. She knew already that her hasty step had been a mistake; to-day the slow-gathering consciousness became a fixed centre of pain. She had looked from her brother to her husband and back again; she understood that the difference between the two men was the measure of the gulf set between herself and the world to which she rightly belonged. Her husband’s amiability became vulgar self-complacence; his features, his demeanour, his interests, all bore the ineffaceable stamp of vulgarity. She watched him as he moved impatiently about the room; she anticipated the words he would shortly speak. He had never yet behaved to her with deliberate unkindness, though honeymoon warmth had long since given place to working-day ease of manner; matrimonial familiarity, a snare to the most delicate of men, takes shapes one does not care to dwell upon in the uncultured. But now, when at length the words came, they were rough, rancorous, brutal. Mr. Jalland attempted irony, excogitated sarcasms; finding these insufficient to his needs, he relieved himself in the tongue of bar-parlours. Mary put in no plea of mitigation; she bowed her head and let the torrent fall upon her, humiliated to the core. The man understood very well what he had done, and knew the change in her from that day forth. But he was having his revenge. Our modern knights of the road are subject to one grievous temptation. Living at places of public entertainment at other people’s expense, they acquire tastes and habits which are somewhat rudely interfered with when a sojourn in their homes necessitates a diet and accommodation materially differing from that of hotels. Mary had already had the recognition of this difficulty forced upon her; in future it was to constitute a more serious trouble. Mr. Jalland let no opportunity pass of finding fault with his wife’s housekeeping. The meals she prepared for him he regarded with lofty scorn, and only on being pressed condescended to satisfy his hunger. He would mention what he had recently partaken of at such and such a _table-d’hôte_, adding, “No doubt you often used to have that at home, before you married me,” his irony pointed with a grin. His journeys, fortunately, became more extended, and Mary had sometimes weeks of loneliness; but his return was each time a harder trial. She soon perceived that he was acquiring the habit of drinking more than was good for him; it improved neither his temper nor his manners. Presently he lost a place which he had long held, lost it in some unexplained way, and was for half a year without employment. It was then that Mary first had to appeal to her brother for aid. She did so without consulting her husband, but he of course knew whence came the money upon which he lived; he came ultimately to grumble that the supplies were so restricted. From that time onwards it was alternation of degrees of misery.