While he paced the floor after his wife and children had left the room, there came to him such a vivid picture of the coldness and reserve that must mark the hours of that evening, if they were passed with Cara, that he turned from it with a sickening sense of pain.

Under the impulse of that feeling he left the house, but with no purpose as to where he was going.
For as long, perhaps, as half an hour, Ellis walked the street, his mind, during most of the time, pondering the events of the day.

His absence from business was so much lost, and would throw double burdens on the morrow, for, besides the sum of two hundred dollars to be returned to Wilkinson, he had a hundred to make up for another friend who had accommodated him.

But where was the money to come from?
In the matter of borrowing, Ellis had never done much, and his resources in that line were small.

His losses at the gaming-table added so much to the weight of discouragement under which he suffered! "You play well." Frequently had the artful tempter, Carlton, lured his victim on by this and other similar expressions, during the time he had him in his power; and thus flattered, Ellis continued at cards until repeated losses had so far sobered him as to give sufficient mental resolution to enable him to stop.
Now, these expressions returned to his mind, and their effect upon him was manifested in the thought,-- "If I hadn't been drinking, he would have found in me a different antagonist altogether." It was an easy transition from this state of mind to another.