Jezreel drew his legs up under him on the chair. He was tired and rested his head upon his arms on the table. The silence and the monotony of the regular heavy walking in the room under him, made him drowsy. His little heart ached, though he could not explain why. He tried hard to keep awake, but finally fell asleep, there at the table. At one time he shivered, when the street door of the house shut again with a bang; but he did not wake up. Below, a great big, powerful man had been keeping up a continuous march up and down the room. He was brooding over the events that had just preceded and thinking over the years of his married life. When Hosea first met Gomer, she lived in her father's home in one of the poorest sections of Samaria. Diblaim, Gomer's father, was a poor man and could not give his daughter the advantages other girls in Samaria enjoyed. But Hosea loved Gomer most devotedly and he married her. Son of the priest Beeri, Hosea inherited great wealth and a position among the priests at the Bethel sanctuary. He was thus able to give Gomer not only a beautiful home in one of the city's most beautiful suburbs, but also to introduce her to the royal and social leaders of Samaria. After a few years, however, everything seemed to go wrong in the Hosea household. Gomer developed a weakness for luxury and jewels and fine clothes; she used to be away from the house and the children most of the time; she did not understand her husband, his desire for quiet evenings at home with the children and his dislike of the pomp and display at the court and in society. And that night, Hosea and Gomer parted, Gomer going home to her father. Hosea felt very much oppressed. Walking up and down the room brought him no relief. So he rushed out of the house into the night, into the open, where he could breathe more freely--and think. It was the bang of the door behind him that disturbed Jezreel, asleep at the table. But Hosea's brain was all clogged up. It could not dwell upon a single line of thought for five consecutive minutes. And yet he was so thoroughly absorbed in his thoughts, that he did not notice any number of people excitedly hurrying past him. He walked on toward the center of the city in a daze. The first time he realized that he was not alone on the streets of Samaria was when he found himself being jostled in a wide thoroughfare leading to the market place. Then he was awakened out of the stupor in which he had left his home by cries, coming from several directions: "Shallum!" "Long live the king!" "Long life to Shallum!" Shallum? Who was Shallum? Why was the name being shouted in the streets of Samaria? Hosea, trying to find his bearings, was asking himself these questions when he arrived in the market place.