The food Nat had eaten failed to digest. He was tired and distraught and broken. But he kept his temper. “Let’s go to bed and talk it over in the morning,” he begged. “I told you I’m nearly all in. Can’t you see it?” “No, sir! You don’t go to bed, Nat Forge! Not till you’ve made this fire outta somethin’. You don’t catch me crawlin’ out into a cold house when Mary wakes up in the mornin’ and buildin’ no fire like your mother used ter. Not while you lie abed and enjoy yourself. Besides, it’s so cold to-night the pipes’ll freeze. Go down and smash up the piano box, if you can’t find anything else.” Nathan lighted a lantern, went into the cellar and found kindling. When he had the fire negotiated, Milly was in bed with the little daughter,—a small bed in the side room. Nathan had to go into another bedroom, where the hoarfrost was furry on the glass, and crawl between icy sheets alone. He thought of many things that night, for sleep refused to come. Most of all he thought of Carol. He wondered what had become of her, where she was living and if she was happy. Then his thoughts turned to his father, and he wondered how easily Johnathan was resting that night, with his theft on his soul and the desertion of his family on his spirit. He thought of his mother up in the big ark on Vermont Avenue, crazed by the possibility that the court might wrest away her property by that iron process known as The Law. He thought of his sister, married to a French laborer, with a baby coming, up in Canada. He thought of Bernie Gridley and her father’s report of her satisfactory marriage to a Chicago millionaire. He thought, step by step, back to his boyhood and his days with me in Foxboro—happy, care-free days. “Oh, God,” he whispered in the dark. “Why do things happen so? Where’s the reason behind it all—for there must be a reason? Do events and experiences come hit-or-miss—by chance—in this world? It can’t be!” Nathan asked himself if he were doing right, living thus with Milly when he seemed to have nothing in common with her but their child,—when he did not love her? Marriage? What was marriage? Did it mean merely living in the same house with a woman, eating at the same table, sharing the same bed? Or did marriage mean something finer and higher and better than that, something which he had missed? Something which his father had caused him to miss. What was that Something? Where should he go to look for it? What must he do? He had to confess he did not know. He had no standards by which to judge, no training to help him. Even Caleb Gridley could not help him there. He remembered that Caleb had seemed vaguely relieved when the Duchess had passed on. Out of the ruck of all the fellow’s bittersweet memories, his present perplexities, the foggy blur of the future, one fact stood preeminent, however. He must go on. Somehow he must go on. Perhaps time would solve the problem, supply the great answer. But—— He must go on.