And also, Tom learned, a quick settlement was being urged at home. As long as the men had stood firm for the strike, the women had skimped at every point and supported that policy. But when they discovered that the men's courage was going, the women, who feel most the fierce economy of a strike, were for the straight resumption of work and income. Maggie, Tom knew, was beginning to look forward in silent eagerness to a settlement; he guessed that she hoped, the strike ended, he might go back to work untroubled by Foley. Tom undertook to stand out against the proposal of submission, but he might as well have tried to shoulder back a Fundy tide. Men remembered it was he who had so hotly urged them into a strike that thus far had cost them seven weeks' wages. "I suppose you'd have us lose seven more weeks' money," they sneered at him. They said other things, and stronger, for your ironworker has studied English in many places. Monday evening found Tom in a chair at one of the open windows of his sitting-room, staring out at nothing at all, hardly conscious of Maggie, who was reading, or of Ferdinand, who lay dozing on the couch. He was completely discouraged--at the uttermost end of things. He had searched his mind frantically for flaws in the negotiations and in Foley's conduct, flaws which, if followed up, clue by clue, would reveal Foley's suspected treachery. But he found none. There seemed nothing more he could do. The vote would come on Wednesday evening, and its result was as certain as if the count had already been made. And so he sat staring into the line of back yards with their rows and rows of lighted windows. His mind moved over the past five months. They had held nothing for him but failure and pain. He had fought for honor in the management of the union's affairs, staking his place in his trade on the result--and honor in the contest with dishonesty had gone down in defeat. He had urged the union to strike for better wages, and now the strike was on the eve of being lost. He would have to begin life over anew, and he did not know where he could begin. Moreover, he had lost all but a few friends; and he had lost all influence. This was what his fight for right had brought him, and in five months. And this was not the sum of the bitterness the five months had brought him--no, nor its greater part. He had learned how mighty real love can be--and how hopeless!