e carried ahead of Byng now, as though by
the ritual of nature taking their rightful place in life's procession
before him.

Something of what the working-women felt possessed Jasmine, but it was
an impulse born of the moment, a flood of feeling begotten by the
tragedy. It had in it more of remorse than aught else; it was, in part,
the agitation of a soul surprised into revelation. Yet there was, too,
a strange, deep, undefined pity welling up in her heart,--pity for
Rudyard, and because of what she did not say directly even to her own
soul. But pity was there, with also a sense of inevitableness, of the
continuance of things which she was too weak to alter.

Like the two women of the people ahead, she held Rudyard's hand, as she
walked beside him, till he was carried into the manager's office near
by. She was conscious that on the other side of Rudyard was a tall
figure that staggered and swayed as it moved on, and that two dark eyes
were turned towards her ever and anon.

Into those eyes she had looked but once since the rescue, but all that
was necessary of gratitude was said in that one glance: "You have saved
Rudyard--you, Ian," it said.

With Al'mah it was different. In the light of the open door of the
manager's office, she looked into Ian Stafford's face. "He saved my
life, you remember," she said; "and you have saved his. I love you."

"I love you!" Greatness of heart was speaking, not a woman's emotions.
The love she meant was of the sort which brings no darkness in its
train. Men and women can speak of it without casting down their eyes or
feeling a flush in their cheeks.

To him came also the two women whose husbands, Jacob and Jabez, were
restored to them.

"Man, we luv ye," one said, and the other laid a hand on his breast and
nodded assent, adding, "Ay, we luv ye."

That was all; but greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down
his life for his friend--and for his enemies, maybe. Enemies these two
rescued men were in one sense--young socialists--enemies to the present
social order, with faces set against the capitalist and the aristocrat
and the landlord; yet in the crisis of life dipping their hands in the
same dish, drinking from the same cup, moved by the same sense of
elementary justice, pity, courage, and love.

"Man, we luv ye!" And the women turned away to their own--to their
capital, which in the slump of Fate had suffered no loss. It was
theirs, complete and paying large divide