Sentence:  Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from <WSD>carking</WSD> care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To bring worry, vexation, or anxiety.