ONE WIFE'S HUSBAND. 
347 
Doreen would only be able to afford a tiny 
house, and he could get a better price for the 
big furniture than they, selling it when he 
was dead, could do. 
The bleakness on his wife’s face had long 
become permanent, her voice weary and cold. 
Even Doreen, lacking the sufficiency of toys 
that had been hers of old, seemed gradually 
to be replacing her love for her father with a 
sort of reserve and mistrust. 
Isabel protested regularly. But for a 
year he quieted her. Then she made a stand. 
“ Why have you altered every tiling ? ” she 
asked, bitterly, one day. £i You behave like 
traveller at Mason’s — more than twice as 
much as you used to. She says a tax on 
paper is impossible*” (Mrs. Wayling was the 
wife of another traveller at Mason's.) 
“ Wayling is a fool,” said Osmond. “ He’s 
no good in the business. He’ll be the first to 
feel the pinch when it comes.” 
He went over to his wife and knelt down 
by her chair, taking her hands — roughened a 
little by household duties which in the old 
days had been done by a maid-servant, now 
long abolished. 
“ Stick to me, Isabel, for Heaven’s sake/’ 
he asked her, almost in a moan. 1,4 I know 
4t< STICK TO ME, ISABEL, FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE,’ HE ASKED HER ALMOST IN A MOAN. 
a miser— 1 never heard anything like it. I 
say nothing for myself — T don’t care how / 
look — but you stint Doreen for clothes. The 
child has got nothing decent to wear. Oh, 1 
know she’s warm, and all that — but she 
hasn’t got anything pretty — like other 
children l ” 
He had averted his eyes. 
“ It’s the tax,” he said, low' and hurriedly. 
“ It’s coming on — everyone says so. I’m 
trying for a berth with a bigger firm. When 
I get it we shall be as w'e were before. But 
if I don’t I shall be out of a berth before long, 
and we must have a reserve.” 
“ But Mrs. Wayling says her husband says 
you are making twice as much as any other 
what it. is for you and the little one. I’d cut 
my hand off rather than stint you — but that 
wouldn’t help. I must have a reserve- — to 
fall back on. Stick it out, old girl. It hurts 
me — nobody knows how it hurts me — it’s 
killing me ! ” 
But a year of bitter brooding had left its 
mark on the woman. She drew her hand 
away. 
“ I don’t see why we can’t be like everybody 
else,” she said, half-sullenly. “No one else 
stints and scrapes in case the husband loses 
his berth like we do. They do their best and 
chance it. Oh, I’m tired of it — sick ol it. 
1 can’t stand it. I get nothing — nothing. 1 
work like a slave — I’m in rags. If I’d been 
