They left New York in September and went slowly West. Denasia had a fine physique, but it was not a physique trained to the special labour it had to endure: long days in hot railway cars; hurry and worry at every performance; no seclusion, no time for study; no time to acknowledge headache or weariness; a score of little humiliations and wrongs; a constant irritability at Roland's apparent indifference to her wretchedness and apparent satisfaction with the company and life into which he was thrown. The men, indeed, all seemed satisfied. They had cigars to smoke, and they told stories and played cards, and so beguiled the weary hours of travel. The women were headachy and tired; they soon threw aside their paper novels and confidential talks. Some of the very young ones--pretty, wilful, inexperienced girls, not yet disillusioned, not yet weary--added flirtation to their amusements. It pained Denasia to see Roland a willing aid to their foolish pastime. She had no fear that her husband would wrong her, but the pretence pained and humbled her. It was a wearisome seven months, a nightmare kind of life, unrelieved by even a phantom show of success. Men in the Sierras, out on the great Western plains, knew not the sea. They could not be roused to enthusiasm. Fisher-folk and fisher-life were outside their sympathies. They preferred a comic song--a song that hit a famous person, or a political principle, or a Western foible. Miners liked to hear about "Leadville Jim." It touched their sensibilities when the "Three Fishers who Went Sailing out into the West" made no picture in their minds. Without being a failure, Denasia could not be said to be a success. She was out of her place, and consequently out of sympathy with all that touched her life. Coming back eastward, while they were at Denver Denasia was stricken with typhoid fever. It was the result of months of unsatisfactory, unhappy labour, of worry and fret and disappointment. Nostalgia also of the worst kind had attacked her. She shut her eyes against the great mountains and endless plains. She wanted the sea. She wanted her home. Above all, she wanted to hide herself in her mother's breast. Roland had been frequently unkind to her lately. She had been utterly unable to respond to his moods, so different from her own, and she had been more and more pained by the silly attentions he bestowed on others.