ipitancy of action in the matter of the candidates for the club had
been the primary cause of the peril that now beset her husband's
business prosperity by reason of the strike thus induced. She bewailed
the impetuous character of her emotions, which had so evilly led her
into an action fraught with such dire consequences. She had no regret
for the motives that had impelled her, but she was profoundly sorrowful
over the thoughtless haste with which she had entered on a course of
more than doubtful expediency. Her one relief was in a reiteration that
she would, that she must, find some way by which to make amends for the
catastrophe she had so ingenuously engineered. To the discovery of a
method for retrieving her error, she gave her mind with an almost
frenzied concentration; but the effort was fruitless. Cudgel her wearied
brain as she would, it could not make pace to the goal she sought. When,
after a sleepless night, she rose, it was with the maze of disaster
still unthreaded. Her usual ingenuity of resource was become impotent.
Raging against her own supineness, she was yet forced into ignoble
inactivity.

Cicily learned that her husband had breakfasted early, and had left the
house, without any message to her, or any statement as to when he might
return. The sight of food sickened her, but she managed to drink a cup
of coffee, which put a little heart into her after the wearing hours of
the night. A turn around the Park and along the Drive still further
quickened her spirits; but the day passed without any flash of
inspiration as to a means for undoing the ill she had wrought. She made
a toilette for dinner by a brave effort. Yet, she might have spared her
pains, for Hamilton did not appear. She idled through the meal with as
much cheeriness of demeanor as she could summon for the benefit of the
servants. Afterward, she sought the seclusion of her boudoir, leaving
word that she should be notified immediately in the event of her
husband's return.

In the meantime, Hamilton himself had opportunity for meditation, and
this had softened his mood to some degree. He admitted to himself that
her interest in the wives of his workmen had been the prime factor in
their determination to endure a temporary cut in the wage-scale without
striking. To be sure, his own attitude of confidential intercourse with
the leaders in stating his position frankly had had its influence; but
he did not for a moment believe that this alone wo