Gone!  Nan gone—­like that!  No, no!  He would not believe it.  She might have intended to go—­she might have wanted to go—­she might even have started to go—­but she had turned back!  She loved him; she was his.  During those long days and nights up in the woods, he had fought the issue with himself and made up his mind that Nan Brent was the one woman in the world for him, that there could never, by God’s grace, be any other, and that he would have her, come what might and be the price what it would.  Rather than the fortune for which his father had toiled and sacrificed, Donald preferred Nan’s love; rather than a life of ease and freedom from worry, he looked forward with a fierce joy to laboring with his hands for a pittance, provided he might have the privilege of sharing it with her.  And The Dreamerie, the house his father had built with such great, passionate human hopes and tender yearnings, the young laird of Port Agnew could abandon without a pang for that little white house on the Sawdust Pile.  Round steak and potatoes, fried by the woman destined to him for his perfect mate, would taste better to him than the choicest viands served by light stepping servitors in his father’s house.

What, after all, was there worth while in the world for him if he was to be robbed of his youth and his love?  For him, the bare husks of life held no allurement; he was one of that virile, human type that rejects the doctrine of sacrifice, denial, and self-repression in this life for the greater glory of God and man’s promise of a reward in another life, of which we wot but little and that little not scientifically authenticated.  He wanted the great, all-compelling, omnipotent Present, with its gifts that he could clutch in his fierce hands or draw to his hungry heart.  To hell with the future.  He reflected that misers permit their thoughts to dwell upon it and die rich and despised, leaving to the apostles of the Present the enjoyment of the fruits of a foolish sacrifice.

“She came back.  I know she did,” he mumbled, as he groped his way through the dark of the drying-yard.  “I’m sick.  I must see her and tell her to wait until I’m well.  The damned dirty world can do what it jolly well pleases to me, but I’ll protect her from it.  I will—­by God!”

He emerged into the open fields beyond which lay the Sawdust Pile, snuggled down on the beach.  The Brent cottage was visible in the dim starlight, and he observed that there was no light in the window; nevertheless, his high faith did not falter.  He pressed on, although each step was the product of an effort, mental and physical.  His legs were heavy and dragged, as if he wore upon, his logger’s boots the thick, leaden soles of a deep-sea diver.

At the gate, he leaned and rested for a few minutes, then entered the deserted yard and rapped at the front door; but his summons bringing no response, he staggered round to the back door and repeated it.  He waited half a minute and then banged furiously with his fist upon the door-panel.  Still receiving no response, he seized the knob and shook the door until the little house appeared to rattle from cellar to cupola.