Mrs. Staines heard he was in the house, and came to know about the
trial. She came hurriedly in, and caught him with his head on the table,
in an attitude of prostration, quite new to him; he raised his head
directly he heard her, and revealed a face, pale, stern, and wretched.

"Oh! what is the matter now?" said she.

"The matter is what it has always been, if I could only have seen it.
You have deceived me, and disgraced yourself. Look at those bills."

"What bills? Oh!"

"You have had an allowance for housekeeping."

"It wasn't enough."

"It was plenty, if you had kept faith with me, and paid ready money. It
was enough for the first five weeks. I am housekeeper now, and I shall
allow myself two pounds a week less, and not owe a shilling either."

"Well, all I know is, I couldn't do it: no woman could."

"Then, you should have come to me, and said so; and I would have shown
you how. Was I in Egypt, or at the North Pole, that you could not find
me, to treat me like a friend? You have ruined us: these debts will
sweep away the last shilling of our little capital; but it isn't that,
oh, no! it is the miserable deceit."

Rosa's eye caught the sum total of Madame Cie's bill, and she turned