Emil indeed had persuaded himself not merely that fortune had betrayed him, and the hand of the prosperous world was against him, but that his wife was partly to blame for it. Looking back on his last fiasco, he conjured up the circumstance that she had not fallen in with his suggestion of an exodus to New York, and this he had promptly distorted into a grievance, which grew the more he nursed it. To the notion that she had thwarted him in everything and that their relations as husband and wife had been wholly unsympathetic was only another step. It suited him to feel that he was the injured party, for he was face to face with the responsibility of supporting his family, which must be met or avoided. The question of immediate funds was already pressing. His last reverse had discouraged and angered him, but it had not diminished his confidence that he would succeed in the right place. It had only convinced him that Benham was not the right place; that Benham was too small and provincial; too unappreciative of real ability. He was unpleasantly in debt, but the bills which he had contracted for political expenses could be disregarded for the present. He had no property with which to meet them, and if he were pressed, he had merely to go into insolvency in order to rid himself of them altogether. Nor need he worry about the mortgage for the present. It would not be due for two years, and, provided the interest were paid, they could not be molested. These redeeming features of his plight were clear to him after the first days of mental agitation, but his spirit did not reassert its wonted elasticity. Analyzing the cause, he perceived that his whole surroundings were repugnant to him, and that he shrank from recommencing life at the foot of the ladder under the conditions in which he found himself. He was determined to leave Benham, and he was determined that his family, if they came with him, should toe the mark. What this phrase meant precisely he did not formulate, but it suited his mood. "Toe the mark." He kept repeating it to himself, as though it promised relief from domestic insubordination. Yes, if his wife did not choose to adopt his theories and abet him in his undertakings, she could go her own way for all he cared. It was only on account of the children that he did not put an end to their contract of marriage to-morrow by leaving her. Except for them it were surely folly for a man and woman whose ideas were utterly at variance to continue a partnership the only fruit of which could be discord and recriminations. So he argued, and it was only the thought of his children which restrained him from precipitate action and caused him to continue to go down-town every day seeking a bare livelihood. Since the night of his defeat at the polls, Constance had not asked him for money. Presumably she had some laid by, and was living on that, but by the first of the month she must have recourse to him or starve, and