m the office and laid it over the boy.

Without direct orders all work in the mill had ceased, little knots
of men had gathered in the yard and there was a half-suppressed
unanimous murmur from two hundred throats when a group of men came out
of the room with the shattered window, carrying the still conscious
form of the author of the outrage. It rose and fell and rose again
threateningly. Christopher came out of the waiting-room and at sight
of him it fell again.

"They must go back to work," he said to the head foreman, who waited
uneasily. "They can do nothing, and if we stop work there will be
trouble."

"Where are you going, sir?"

The foreman ventured this much on sheer necessity.

"To Ann Barty."

"What shall I say to them?" Again he eyed the men uneasily.

"Tell them I wish it," returned Christopher simply. "It's only an hour
to closing time, but it will steady them down."

He went back to the motor car he had been on the point of entering not
fifteen minutes ago, and they made a lane for him to pass through,
following him with their eyes till the gate closed behind him. The
foreman stood on the steps of the office and gave the order to resume
work. Not a man moved.

"It's Mr. Aston's wish," he shouted, "if you've got any heart in you
to show him what you feel, you'll attend to it."

The crowd swayed and broke up, melted once more into units, who
disappeared their several ways. The head foreman wiped his forehead
and went into the office.

Outside the ante-room to Christopher's private office the glass was
strewn on the pathway, and that was the only sign in the mill yard of
what had occurred.

Christopher found a group already assembled round

Ann Barty's cottage. They drew back from him with curious eyes.

"Is anyone with her?" he asked, his hand on the latch.

"Mrs. Toils and Jane Munden, what's her sister," said a woman, eagerly
seizing a chance of a speaking part in this drama of life and death.

Christopher went in. The mother was sitting dry-eyed and staring, her
hands twisted in her coarse apron. She swayed to and fro with
mechanical rhythm, and paid no heed at all to the two weeping women
who kept up a flow of low-uttered sentences of well-meant but
inadequate comfort. Christopher bent over her and took both her hands,
neither remembering the other nor seeing aught but the mother with a
burden of grief slowly dropping on her.

"Ann," he whispered, "Ann, there was no choice for me.