raid they'd
hurt you, I came into the mill to find you, and you--and you you acted as
if you'd never seen me before. I was a fool, but I'm glad I came--I'm
glad I had a chance to tell you this."

"My God--won't you trust me?" he begged, with a tremendous effort to
collect himself. "You trusted me yesterday. What's happened to change
you? Won't you tell me? It's nothing I've done--I swear. And what do you
mean when you say you were in that mob? I was almost crazy when I came
back and found they'd been here in this mill--can't you understand? It
wasn't that I didn't think of you. I'd been worrying about you all day.
Look at this thing sensibly. I love you, I can't get along without
you--I'll marry you. I said I would, I meant it I'll marry you just as
soon as I can clean up this mess of a strike. It won't take long."

"Don't touch me!" she commanded, and he recoiled again. "I'll tell you
where I've been, if you want to know,--I've been to see my sister in--in
a house, in Boston. I guess you know what kind of a house I mean, you've
been in them, you've brought women to them,--just like the man that
brought her there. Would you marry me now--with my sister there? And am I
any different from her? You you've made me just like her." Her voice had
broken, now, into furious, uncontrolled weeping--to which she paid no
heed.

Ditmar was stunned; he could only stare at her.

"If I have a child," she said, "I'll--I'll kill you--I'll kill myself."

And before he could reply--if indeed he had been able to reply--she had
left the office and was running down the stairs....

CHAPTER XIV

What was happening to Hampton? Some hundreds of ignorant foreigners,
dissatisfied with the money in their pay envelopes, had marched out of
the Clarendon Mill and attacked the Chippering and behold, the revered
structure of American Government had quivered and tumbled down like a
pack of cards! Despite the feverish assurances in the Banner "extra" that
the disturbance was merely local and temporary, solid citizens became
panicky, vaguely apprehending the release of elemental forces hitherto
unrecognized and unknown. Who was to tell these solid, educated business
men that the crazy industrial Babel they had helped to rear, and in which
they unconsciously dwelt, was no longer the simple edifice they thought
it? that Authority, spelled with a capital, was a thing of the past? that
human instincts suppressed become explosives to displace the str