"Yes, there is, or he'd never stay away like this," she returned quickly. Her voice sank with resignation. "I suppose all I can do is to pray." "And look," Tom added. "I'll look." She rose to go. Maggie pressed her to have breakfast, but she refused, a faint returning hope in her eyes. "Mebbe the Lord's brung him home while I've been here." A half minute after the door had closed upon her Tom opened it and hurried down the three flights of stairs. He caught her just going into the street. He fumbled awkwardly in his pocket. "Do you need anything?" "No. Bless you, Brother Keating. Nels left me plenty o' money. You know he works reg'lar on the docks." Two causes for Petersen's absence occurred as possible to Tom--arrest and death. He looked through the record of arrests for the last two days at police headquarters. Petersen's name was not there, and to give a false name would never have occurred to Petersen's slow mind. So Tom knew he was not in a cell. He visited the public morgues and followed attendants who turned back sheets from cold faces. But Petersen's face he did not see. The end of the day brought also the end of Tom's search. He now had three explanations for Petersen's absence: The Swede was dead, and his body unrecovered; he had wandered off in a fit of mental aberration; he had deserted his wife. The first he did not want to believe. The third, remembering the looks that had passed between the two the night he had visited their home, he could not believe. He clung to the second; and that was the only one he mentioned to Mrs. Petersen when he called in the evening to report. "He'll come to suddenly, and come back," he encouraged her. "That's the way with such cases." "You think so?" She brightened visibly. A fourth explanation flashed upon him. "Perhaps he got caught by accident on some boat he had been helping load, and got carried away." She brightened a little more at this. "Just so he's alive!" she cried. "He'll be certain to be back in a few days," Tom said positively. He left her greatly comforted by his words, though he himself did not half believe them. There was nothing more he could do toward discovering the missing man. It must be admitted that, during the next few days, he thought of Petersen much less frequently than was the due of such a friend as the Swede had proved. The affairs of the union held his mind exclusively. Opinion was turning overwhelmingly toward giving up the strike, and giving it up immediately. Wherever there was a man who still held out, there were three or four men pouring words upon him. "Foley may not be so honest as to hurt him, but he's a fighter from 'way back, an' if he thinks we ought to stop fightin' now, then we ought to 'a' stopped weeks ago"--such was the substance of the reasoning in bar-room and street that converted many a man to yielding.