r which broke and swelled like the waves of
the sea, different people upon the platform heard different things.
Peter Dale and his little band of coadjutors were men enough to know
that a new force had come amongst them. It is possible, even, that
they, hardened as they were by time and circumstances, felt some thrill
of that erstwhile enthusiasm which in their younger days had brought
them out from the ranks of their fellows. To Aaron, listening with
quivering attention to every sentence, it seemed like the consummation
of all his dreams. Julia alone was conscious of a certain restraint,
knew that behind all the deep feeling and splendid hopefulness of
Maraton's words, there was a sense of something kept back. It wasn't
what he had meant to say. Something had come between Maraton and his
passionate dreams of freedom. He, too, had become a particularist. He,
too, was content to preach salvation piecemeal. He had spoken to them
at first simply, as one worker to another. Then he had drifted out into
the larger sea, and for those few moments he had been, at any rate,
vigorously in earnest as he had attacked with scorpion-like bitterness
the hideous disproportions which existed between the capitalized
corporation and the labour which supported it. Yet afterwards he had
gone back within himself. Almost she had expected to see him with his
hands upraised, bidding them tear down these barriers for themselves.
Instead he showed them the legalized way, not to free humanity, but to
ensure for themselves a more comfortable place in life. It was all very
magnificent. The strike was assured now, almost the success of it.

It was long before they let him leave the platform. In the droning
impotence of the men who followed him, the vast audience seemed to
realise once more the splendid perfection of his wholly natural and
inspiring oratory. They rose and shouted for him, and once again, as he
said a few words, the spell of silence lay upon them. Julia sat telling
herself passionately that all was well, that nothing more than this was
to have been hoped for, that indeed the liberator had come. More than
once she felt Aaron's hands gripping her arm, as Maraton's words seemed
to cleave a way towards the splendid truth. Ross, on her other side,
was like a man carried into another s world.

"It is the Messiah," he muttered, "the Messiah of suffering men and
women! No longer will they cry aloud for bread and be given stones."

Everything