d and see my
establishment, Number 77 Dey Street, one flight up, no elevator. Will
you?"

She laughed tremulously as he took her hand.

"Yes indeed, I will," she promised. And she stood awhile staring after
him. She was glad he had come to Hampton, and yet she did not even know
his name.

CHAPTER XVI

She had got another place--such was the explanation of her new activities
Janet gave to Hannah, who received it passively. And the question dreaded
about Ditmar was never asked. Hannah had become as a child, performing
her tasks by the momentum of habituation, occasionally talking simply of
trivial, every-day affairs, as though the old life were going on
continuously. At times, indeed, she betrayed concern about Edward,
wondering whether he were comfortable at the mill, and she washed and
darned the clothes he sent home by messenger. She hoped he would not
catch cold. Her suffering seemed to have relaxed. It was as though the
tortured portion of her brain had at length been seared. To Janet, her
mother's condition when she had time to think of it--was at once a relief
and a new and terrible source of anxiety.

Mercifully, however, she had little leisure to reflect on that tragedy,
else her own sanity might have been endangered. As soon as breakfast was
over she hurried across the city to the Franco-Belgian Hall, and often
did not return until nine o'clock at night, usually so tired that she
sank into bed and fell asleep. For she threw herself into her new labours
with the desperate energy that seeks forgetfulness, not daring to pause
to think about herself, to reflect upon what the future might hold for
her when the strike should be over. Nor did she confine herself to
typewriting, but, as with Ditmar, constantly assumed a greater burden of
duty, helping Czernowitz--who had the work of five men--with his
accounts, with the distribution of the funds to the ever-increasing
number of the needy who were facing starvation. The money was paid out to
them in proportion to the size of their families; as the strike became
more and more effective their number increased until many mills had
closed; other mills, including the Chippering, were still making a
desperate attempt to operate their looms, and sixteen thousand operatives
were idle. She grew to know these operatives who poured all day long in a
steady stream through Headquarters; she heard their stories, she entered
into their lives, she made decisions. Some, even