osperity. And Hampton believed, of course, that this was the inevitable
result of the anarchistic preaching of such enemies of society as Jastro
and Antonelli if these, indeed, had not incited the Syrians to the deed.
But it was a plot of the mill-owners, Anna insisted--they themselves had
planted the explosive, adroitly started the rumours, told the police
where the dynamite was to be found. Such was the view that prevailed at
Headquarters, pervaded the angrily buzzing crowd that stood
outside--heedless of the rain--and animated the stormy conferences in the
Salle de Reunion.

The day wore on. In the middle of the afternoon, as she was staring out
of the window, Anna Mower returned with more news. Dynamite had been
discovered in Hawthorne Street, and it was rumoured that Antonelli and
Jastro were to be arrested.

"You ought to go home and rest, Janet," she said kindly.

Janet shook her head.

"Rolfe's back," Anna informed her, after a moment. "He's talking to
Antonelli about another proclamation to let people know who's to blame
for this dynamite business. I guess he'll be in here in a minute to
dictate the draft. Say, hadn't you better let Minnie take it, and go
home?"

"I'm not sick," Janet repeated, and Anna reluctantly left her.

Rolfe had been absent for a week, in New York, consulting with some of
the I.W.W. leaders; with Lockhart, the chief protagonist of Syndicalism
in America, just returned from Colorado, to whom he had given a detailed
account of the Hampton strike. And Lockhart, next week, was coming to
Hampton to make a great speech and look over the ground for himself. All
this Rolfe told Janet eagerly when he entered the bibliotheque. He was
glad to get back; he had missed her.

"But you are pale!" he exclaimed, as he seized her hand, "and how your
eyes burn! You do not take care of yourself when I am not here to watch
you." His air of solicitude, his assumption of a peculiar right to ask,
might formerly have troubled and offended her. Now she was scarcely aware
of his presence. "You feel too much--that is it you are like a torch that
consumes itself in burning. But this will soon be over, we shall have
them on their knees, the capitalists, before very long, when it is known
what they have done to-day. It is too much--they have overreached
themselves with this plot of the dynamite."

"You have missed me, a little?"

"I have been busy," she said, releasing her hand and sitting down at her
desk a