But one day, as she was leaving, he held her back, and looked at her with a strange smile.
“Well, dear?” she said, with a questioning look.
He stood looking at her as before, with the same far-off smile. He was looking through her into the little world she stood for. This home, this family that he, a homeless man, had won through her, was it all to go down in shipwreck?
Then he kissed her eyes and let her go.
And as her footsteps died away, he stood a moment, moved by a sudden desire to turn to some Power above him with a prayer that he might succeed in this work. But there was no such Power. And in the end his eyes turned once more to the iron, the fire, his tools, and his own hands, and it was as though he sighed out a prayer to these: “Help me—help me, that I may save my wife and children’s happiness.”
Sleep? rest? weariness? He had only a year’s grace. The bank would only wait a year.
Winter and spring passed, and one day in July he came home and rushed in upon Merle crying, “To-morrow, Merle! They will be here to-morrow!”
“Who?”
“The people to look at the machine. We’re going to try it to-morrow.”
“Oh, Peer!” she said breathlessly, gazing at him.