as the men watched and talked
about her, she had raised a hand in the heat and brushed it hurriedly
before her eyes. And then, just as the superintendent turned from her
and all would have been well again, her overdrawn nerve gave out. The
hands became suddenly limp on the machine they knew so well; they slid
backward, at first slowly and then with the speed of a falling body; and
poor Miller slipped quietly from her stool to the floor, her head
actually brushing the lady's skirt as she fell.

Cally stifled a little cry. Hugo, obvious for once, said, "Why, she's
fainted!"--in an incredulous voice. Considerably better in action were
the experienced Works people. MacQueen sprang for a water-bucket with a
celerity which strongly suggested practice. A stout, unstayed buncher
filled a long-felt want by flinging open a window. One from a
neighboring machine sat on the floor, Miller's head on her lap. Two
others stood by....

Carlisle, holding to the silenced machine with a small gloved hand,
gazed down as at a bit of stage-play.

They had formed a screen about the fallen girl, under MacQueen's
directions, to cut her off from the general view. The superintendent's
gaze swept critically about. However, the sudden confusion had drawn the
attention of all that part of the room, and concealment proved a too
optimistic hope. The moment happened to be ripe for one of those curious
panics of the imagination to which crowded womanhood is psychologically
subject. Knowledge that somebody was down ran round the room as if it
had been shouted; and on the knowledge, fear stalked among the tired
girls, and the thing itself was born of the dread of it.

So it was that Carlisle, gripping fast to poor Miller's machine, heard
an odd noise behind her, and turned with a sickening dropping of the
heart. Five yards away a girl gave a little moan and flopped forward
upon her machine. She was a fine, strapping young creature, and it is
certain that two minutes before nothing had been further from her mind
than fainting. It did not stop there. Far up the room a "wrapper" rose
in the dense air, took her head in both hands and fell backward into
the arms of the operative next her. In the extreme corner of the great
room a little stir indicated that another had gone down there. Work had
almost ceased. Many eyes stared with sudden nervous apprehension into
other eyes, as if to say: "_Am I to be the next?_..."

MacQueen's voice rang out--a fine voice