all do!" she cried, with all a young girl's enthusiasm.

"I want to see her, Fannie. Where does she live?"

"Oh, somewhere in Greenwich Village. But she'll be up at the Woman's
League after the meeting."

He went up to the Woman's League and found the office crowded with women
and men. He asked for Miss Heffer.

"I'll take your name," said the young woman, and then came back with the
answer that "he'd have to wait."

So he took a seat and waited. He felt feverish and sick, as if he could
no longer carry this burden with him. It seemed impossible to sit still.
And yet he waited over an hour, waited until it was eight at night, all
the gas-jets lit.

The young woman came up to him.

"You want to see Miss Heffer? Come this way."

He was led up a flight of stairs to a little narrow hall-room. Sally
Heffer was there at a roll-top desk, still in her little brown
coat--quiet, pale, her clear eyes remarkably penetrating. She turned.

"Yes?"

He shook pitifully,... then he sat down, holding his hat in his hands.

"I'm Joe Blaine...."

"Joe Blaine ... of what?"

"Of the printery ... that burned...."

She looked at him sharply.

"So, you're the employer."

"Yes, I am."

"Well," she said, brusquely, "what do you want?"

"I heard you speak this afternoon." His face flickered with a smile.

"And so you ...?"

He could say nothing; and she looked closer. She saw his gray face, his
unsteady eyes, the tragedy of the broken man. Then she spoke with a
lovely gentleness.

"You want to do something?"

"Yes," he murmured, "I want to give--all."

She lowered her voice, and it thrilled him.

"It won't help to give your money--you must give yourself. We don't want
charity."

He said nothing for a moment; and then strength rose in him.

"I'll tell you why I came.... I felt I had to.... I felt that you were
accusing me. I know I am guilty. I have come here to be"--he smiled
strangely--"sentenced."

She drew closer.

"You came here for _that_?"

"Yes."

She rose and took a step either way. She gazed on him, and suddenly she
broke down and cried, her hands to her face.

"O God," she sobbed, "when will all this be over? When will we get rid
of this tragedy? I can't stand it longer."

He rose, too, confused.

"Listen," he whispered. "I swear to you, I swear, that from this day on
my life belongs to those"--his voice broke--"dead girls ... to the
toilers...."

She impulsively reached out a hand, and he