ng, and all day long it had fed
upon doubtings and uncertainty. Would Andrew Galbraith recover from the
effects of the drowning accident? At first, he thought he would go to
his room and telephone to Margery. But before he had reached the foot of
Shawnee Street he had changed his mind. What he wanted to say could
scarcely be trusted to the wires.

Twice before he reached the gate of the Grierson lawn he fancied he was
followed, and twice he stepped behind the nearest shade-tree and
tightened his grip upon the thing in his right-hand pocket. But both
times the rearward sidewalk showed itself empty. Since false alarms may
have, for the moment, all the shock of the real, he found that his hands
were trembling when he came to unlatch the Grierson gate, and it made
him vindictively self-scornful. Also, it gave him a momentary glimpse
into another and hitherto unmeasured depth in the valley of stumblings.
In the passing of the glimpse he was made to realize that it is the
coward who kills; and kills because he is a coward.

He had traversed the stone-flagged approach and climbed the steps of the
broad veranda to reach for the bell-push when he heard his name called
softly in the voice that he had come to know in all of its many
modulations. The call came from the depths of one of the great wicker
lounging-chairs half-hidden in the veranda shadows. In a moment he had
placed another of the chairs for himself, dropping into it wearily.

"How did you know it was I?" he asked, when he could trust himself to
speak.

"I saw you at the gate," she returned. "Are you just up from the Iron
Works?"

"I have been to dinner since we came up-town--Raymer and I."

A pause, and then: "The men are still holding out?"

"We are holding out. The plant is closed, and it will stay closed until
we can get another force of workmen."

"There will be lots of suffering," she ventured.

"Inevitably. But they have brought it upon themselves."

"Not the ones who will suffer the most--the women and children," she
corrected.

"It's no use," he said, answering her thought. "There is nothing in me
to appeal to."

"There was yesterday, or the day before," she suggested.

"Perhaps. But yesterday was yesterday, and to-day is to-day. As I told
Raymer a little while ago, I've changed my mind."

"About the rights of the down-trodden?"

"About all things under the sun."

"No," she denied, "you only think you have. But you didn't come here to
tell