d
her heart stop beating when she thought of the possibility of his being
shot? For these unwelcome phenomena within herself Janet could not
account. When they disturbed and frightened her, she plunged into her
work with the greater zeal....

As the weeks went by, the strain of the strike began to tell on the weak,
the unprepared, on those who had many mouths to feed. Shivering with the
cold of that hardest of winters, these unfortunates flocked to the
Franco-Belgian Hall, where a little food or money in proportion to the
size of their families was doled out to them. In spite of the
contributions received by mail, of the soup kitchens and relief stations
set up by various organizations in various parts of the city, the supply
little more than sufficed to keep alive the more needy portion of the
five and twenty thousand who now lacked all other means of support.
Janet's heart was wrung as she gazed at the gaunt, bewildered faces
growing daily more tragic, more bewildered and gaunt; she marvelled at
the animal-like patience of these Europeans, at the dumb submission of
most of them to privations that struck her as appalling. Some indeed
complained, but the majority recited in monotonous, unimpassioned tones
their stories of suffering, or of ill treatment by the "Cossacks" or the
police. The stipends were doled out by Czernowitz, but all through the
week there were special appeals. Once it was a Polish woman, wan and
white, who carried her baby wrapped in a frayed shawl.

"Wahna littel money for milk," she said, when at length their attention
was drawn to her.

"But you get your money, every Saturday," the secretary informed her
kindly.

She shook her head.

"Baby die, 'less I have littel milk--I show you."

Janet drew back before the sight of the child with its sunken cheeks and
ghastly blue lips .... And she herself went out with the woman to buy the
milk, and afterwards to the dive in Kendall Street which she called
home--in one of those "rear" tenements separated from the front buildings
by a narrow court reeking with refuse. The place was dank and cold,
malodorous. The man of the family, the lodgers who lived in the other
room of the kennel, were out on the streets. But when her eyes grew used
to the darkness she perceived three silent children huddled in the bed in
the corner....

On another occasion a man came running up the stairs of the Hall and
thrust his way into a meeting of the Committee--one of those