Anthony Cleverdon's pride was satisfied. He had gained a triumph, and was wrapped up in the sense of victory for a while, then the gloss of novelty wore off, and he began to regret his precipitancy in taking to him a wife who brought nothing into the family save good looks. The thriftiness of the father now came out in the son. He did not grudge and withhold money where he could make display, but he cut down expenses where no show was made, to the lowest stage of meanness. Margaret's father died. She thought to take her mother to live with her at Hall, but to this her husband would not consent, nor could she wring a silver coin from him wherewith to assist her mother, reduced to great poverty. This occasioned the first outbreak of domestic hostilities. Margaret was a woman of temper, and would not submit tamely to the domination of her husband. His sister Magdalen took sides against her, and fanned the embers of strife when they gave token of expiring. If Margaret had been of a meek and yielding temperament, the marriage might not have been so full of broils; her husband would have crushed her, and then ignored her. But her spirit rose against him, and stirred the discord that was only temporarily allayed. She could not shut her eyes to his infirmities, she would not condescend to flatter him. In her heart she contrasted him with the man she had loved and had betrayed; her heart never warmed to her husband; on the contrary, indifference changed into hatred. She made no scruple about showing him the state of her mind, she pitilessly unmasked his meannesses, and held them up to mockery; she scoffed at his efforts to thrust himself into a position for which he was not born; he found no more penetrating, remorseless critic of all he did, than his own wife. Anthony Cleverdon believed, and was justified in believing, that his old rival, Richard Malvine, stood between him and domestic peace, as a shadow that blighted and engalled his relations to his wife; that, though he had triumphed formally over his rival, that rival had gained the lasting and substantial success. Anthony Cleverdon might prize himself as high as he pleased, but he could no longer blind himself to the fact, that his money bags which had won his wife for him, were unavailing to buy her affections, and secure to him the fruits of his triumph. This consciousness stimulated his hatred of Malvine to fresh acridity, and in his meanness, he found a base satisfaction in humiliating his wife by every means in his power, and on every available opportunity.