despondent

toivoton, epätoivoinen In low spirits from loss of hope or courage.
(RQ:BLwnds TLdgr)

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 carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.