There were moments of solitude, however, when Briggs could not discipline himself into good humor or take comfort from any sophistry. Then he used to wonder grimly what the end would be. Suppose everything went wrong, suppose he should lose the few thousands he had managed to get together to speculate with? Suppose he should find himself out of politics, deep in debt and without resources? These thoughts usually came to him in the middle of the night as he lay in bed, and a cold perspiration would break out on his forehead. In the early morning, too, long before it was time to get up, he would lie half-asleep, suffering from a vague consciousness of profound misery, more terrible than any suffering he knew in his waking hours. He began to dread the mornings, and he resolved to try to rouse himself and to escape the obsession. But, in spite of his resolutions, he would lie in bed, a helpless prisoner, and as he finally became wide-awake, he would feel exhausted. For himself he believed that he had no fear; his whole solicitude was for Helen and the children. He marvelled that he had never worried about the matter before. He had always felt confident that he could keep his family in comfort. It was true that he had taken out a heavy life-insurance policy; but that was a precaution every sensible family man employed. Already that policy had become a burden; he dreaded the next payment. In his moments of greatest depression, Douglas Briggs used to accuse himself of having accomplished nothing in his life. Here he was--forty-two! By this time, he ought to have laid a solid foundation for the future. And yet he had advanced no farther than the point he had reached at thirty-six, when first elected to Congress. He had actually gone back. At thirty-six, he had had at least a clear record and good prospects. Now his name was smirched, his self-respect was weakened, and he was committed to a course that involved more hypocrisy, if not more dishonesty. In the morning he often woke feeling prematurely old with the horrible sense of being a failure, and with hardly energy enough to take up his cares. He wondered if many men suffered as he did, and he decided that it was probably only the exceptional men who did not; he was probably experiencing the common lot. Here, indeed, was some comfort offered by his philosophy.