ling with her beloved desserts, cheerfully unconscious of any
failure in them; she saw her, living like a lady, as she had said, with
every anxiety kept from her. There had been times when her thin face had
been almost illuminated with her new content and satisfaction.

Suddenly grief and remorse overwhelmed her.

"Mother!" she said, huskily. And lay there, crying quietly, with Ellen
holding her hand. All that was hard and rebellious in Edith Boyd was
swept away in that rush of grief, and in its place there came a new
courage and resolution. She would meet the future alone, meet it and
overcome it. But not alone, either; there was always--

It was a Sunday afternoon, and the nurse had picked up the worn ward
Bible and was reading from it, aloud. In their rocking chairs in a
semi-circle around her were the women, some with sleeping babies in
their arms, others with tense, expectant faces.

"Let not your heart be troubled," read the nurse, in a grave young
voice. "Ye believe in God. Believe also in Me. In my Father's house--"

There was always God.

Edith Boyd saw her mother in the Father's house, pottering about some
small celestial duty, and eagerly seeking and receiving approval. She
saw her, in some celestial rocking chair, her tired hands folded, slowly
rocking and resting. And perhaps, as she sat there, she held Edith's
child on her knee, like the mothers in the group around the nurse. Held
it and understood at last.

CHAPTER XLII

It was at this time that Doyle showed his hand, with his customary
fearlessness. He made a series of incendiary speeches, the general theme
being that the hour was close at hand for putting the fear of God into
the exploiting classes for all time to come. His impassioned oratory,
coming at the psychological moment, when the long strike had brought its
train of debt and evictions, made a profound impression. Had he asked
for a general strike vote then, he would have secured it.

As it was, it was some time before all the unions had voted for it. And
the day was not set. Doyle was holding off, and for a reason. Day by
day he saw a growth of the theory of Bolshevism among the so-called
intellectual groups of the country. Almost every university had its
radicals, men who saw emerging from Russia the beginning of a new earth.
Every class now had its Bolshevists. They found a ready market for their
propaganda, intelligent and insidious as it was, among a certain liberal
element