The whole long agony came back to him. Their sacrifices in the beginning, their three hundred dollars that they had scraped together, all they owned in the world, all that stood between them and starvation! And then their toil, month by month, to get together the twelve dollars, and the interest as well, and now and then the taxes, and the other charges, and the repairs, and whatnot! Why, they had put their very souls into their payments on that house, they had paid for it with their sweat and tears⁠—yes, more, with their very lifeblood. Dede Antanas had died of the struggle to earn that money⁠—he would have been alive and strong today if he had not had to work in Durham’s dark cellars to earn his share. And Ona, too, had given her health and strength to pay for it⁠—she was wrecked and ruined because of it; and so was he, who had been a big, strong man three years ago, and now sat here shivering, broken, cowed, weeping like a hysterical child. Ah! they had cast their all into the fight; and they had lost, they had lost! All that they had paid was gone⁠—every cent of it. And their house was gone⁠—they were back where they had started from, flung out into the cold to starve and freeze!