Read it through once

Thus, in a few short years of married life—at the most nine—we find this professional man forced to sell furniture and portions of his library in order to meet current expenses and ease the clamours of his creditors; forced, indeed, from very shame, to quit the self-contained and therefore intolerant town where bitter tongues were wagging and scornful fingers pointing, and to take up a residence in a distant seaside town, where, if he ever hoped to retrench and reform, and had he but given the matter a moment’s consideration, he was scarcely likely to achieve his object.