ble 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 and taking up her notebook.

"You are not well," he insisted.

"I'