After service Quarry went straight to Emma’s room. He could not account for her absence; he had intended to sit with her in the front pew while she stood in the singing. He expected to colour his stories with her behaviour and satisfy every one that she had loved the money Jarlsen left her the best of all his attentions. She was sitting with her charge, who lay with his face turned away from the sun--blind, maimed, deaf--yet as conscious of Quarry’s presence as when last week he had turned to him with lazy scorn and a short word. “Emma,” said Quarry. “Yes,” she said, after a pause. She had been wondering if he could have been telling about the money everywhere and “setting the men on her.” Quarry looked at her and at Jarlsen with a twist in his mouth that he thought of as “his smile.” He realized that he could insult Emma thoroughly in the presence of a Soot citizen who could not stir to protect her. “The women think you might as well marry,” he said. “You’ve got the fixin’s, and if you take me you’ve got the husband. The whole place expects a wedding off you. You’ve got the extra money to care for your friend here.” “I’d rather give up the money than take you; besides,” she said spitefully, “there’s better men nor you in the town that knows I have money for my man. You ain’t no kind to love me after what I’ve had, and I don’t want you should make my love for this one shabby, talkin’ it over all the time. You can get out,” she said very quietly. Quarry went; and, as he said himself, his heart was sour. Then Emma stayed at Jarlsen’s side and prayed in the hot afternoon silence, and wondered why God didn’t do something worth while--that is how she thought it. But she never doubted Him nor the fate that He ordained, but rocked in her only rocking-chair and kissed her helpless lover boldly, longing for a woman’s touch as a sick child longs for its mother. When Jarlsen spoke her name she trembled with love of him; she was awake now and filled with pity. She did not answer, but, like a child, prayed God to tell Jarlsen she heard him call, and then slept till the coolness of dusk awoke her. Jarlsen slept a little while too, and told her he had talked with her in dreams. She got the supper, talking within herself. “I can feel things mend,” she said. “Every one will come out right, and my big man will live again and lick that terrible scant Christian, Quarry!” She ate her supper opposite her silent old father. It was quite late; they had candles and a lamp, which was only an extravagance for courting-time in the sordid social usage of Soot City. Emma had not thought of this till Ben Bowa, the youngest foreman, stood in the narrow doorway. “I didn’t know to come in till I saw lights making the shine,” he explained in Swedes’ English. And then many more came in, and the kitchen was full. Jarlsen cried for water from the next room, and before Emma could get to her feet Quarry had gone to him.