He had been sitting so, dreaming darkly, for an hour or more when Maggie asked him if he had heard whether Petersen had come back. The question brought to his mind that he had neglected Mrs. Petersen for four days. He rose, conscience-smitten, told Maggie he would be back presently, and set forth for the tenement in which the Petersens had their home. He found Mrs. Petersen, her child asleep in her lap, reading the Bible. She appeared to be even slighter and paler than when he had last seen her, but her spirit seemed to burn even higher through the lessened obscuration of her thinning flesh. No, Petersen had not yet come back. "But I fetched my trouble to God in prayer," she said. "An' He helped me, glory to His name! He told me Nels is comin' back." Tom had nothing to give to one so fired by hope, and he slipped away as soon as he could and returned home. On entering his flat, his eyes going straight through the dining-room into the sitting-room, he saw Maggie gazing in uncomfortable silence at a man--a lean, brown man, with knobby face, and wing-like mustache, who sat with bony hands in his lap and eyes fastened on his knees. Tom crossed the dining-room with long strides. Maggie, glad of the chance to escape, passed into the bedroom. "Petersen!" he cried. "Where on earth've you been?" Petersen rose with a glad light in his face and grasped the hand Tom offered. Immediately he disengaged his hand to slip it into a trousers pocket. Tom now noted that Petersen's face was slightly discolored,--dim yellows, and greens, and blues--and that his left thumb was brown, as though stained with arnica. "I come to pay vot I loan," Petersen mumbled. His hand came forth from the pocket grasping a roll of bills as big as his wrist. He unwrapped three tens and silently held them out. Tom, who had watched this action through with dumb amazement, now broke out: "Where d'you get all that money? Where've you been?" The three tens were still in Petersen's outstretched hand. "For vot you give de union, and vot you give me." "But where've you been?" Tom demanded, taking the money. Fear, shame, and contrition struggled for control of Petersen's face. But he answered doggedly: "I vorked at de docks." "You know that's not so, Petersen. You haven't been home for a week. And your wife's scared half to death." "Anna scared? Vy?" He started, and his brown face paled. "Why shouldn't she be?" Tom returned wrathfully. "You went off without a word to her, and not a word from you for a week! Now see here, Petersen, where've you been?" "Vorkin' at de docks," he repeated, but weakly. "And got that wad of money for it! Hardly." He pushed Petersen firmly back into his chair. "Now you've got to tell me all about it."