Slap Jack's, where he still kept some of his things, from the men he knew
best at the factory. Nobody could tell her where he had gone, or what he
intended to do.

Just what she wanted to say to him she did not know. She still resented
bitterly his mistrust of her, and what she regarded as his interference
with her liberty, but she had no intention of letting matters rest as
they were. She and Dan must fight the matter out to some satisfactory
conclusion.

Then came the news of his marriage, shattering every hope and shaking the
very foundation of her being. From her earliest remembrance Dan had been
the most dependable factor in her existence. Whirlwind enthusiasms for
other things and other people had caught her up from time to time, but
she always came back to Dan, as one comes back to solid earth after a
flight in an aeroplane.

In her first weeks of chagrin and mortification she had sought refuge in
thoughts of Mac. She had slept with his unanswered letters under her
pillow and clung to the memory of his ardent eyes, his gay laughter, the
touch of his lips on her hands and cheeks. Had Mac come home that
Christmas, her doom would have been sealed. The light by which she
steered had suddenly gone out, and she could no longer distinguish the
warning coast lights from the harbor lights of home.

But Mac had not come at Christmas, neither had he come in the summer, and
Nance's emotional storm was succeeded by an equally intolerable calm.
Back and forth from factory to boarding home she trudged day by day, and
on Sunday she divided her wages with Mrs. Snawdor, on the condition that
she should have a vote in the management of family affairs. By this plan