How had it happened?  Whose was the fault?  How came it that sixty girls were imprisoned in the skies, as it were, and could only fling themselves down to the stone pavement in an insanity of terror?  What war was more horrible than this Peace of Industry?  Such things must be prevented in future, said New York, rising like a wrathful god—­and for a while the busy wheels of progress turned.

Joe had to attend the inquest as a witness.  He gave his testimony in a simple, sincere, and candid way that gained him sympathy.  His men testified in his behalf, trying to wholly exonerate him and inculpate themselves, and the lawyers cleverly scattered blame from one power to another—­the city, the State, the fire department, the building department, etc.  It became clear that Joe could not be officially punished; it was evident that he had done as much as the run of employers to protect life, and that his intentions had been blameless.

However, that did not ease Joe’s real punishment.  He was a changed man that week, calm, ready with his smile, but haggard and bowed, nervous and overwrought, bearing a burden too heavy for his heart.  He made over the twenty thousand dollars of insurance money to the Relief and Prevention Work; he visited the injured and the bereaved; he forgot Myra and tried to forget himself; he attended committee meetings.

Myra wrote him a little note: 

  Dear Joe,—­Don’t forget that whatever happens I
  believe in you utterly and I love you and shall always
  love you, and that you have me when all else is lost.

  Your
  Myra.

To which he merely replied: 

  Dear Myra,—­I shall remember what you say, and I
  shall see you when I can.

  Yours,
  Joe.

It was on Sunday afternoon that Joe met Fannie Lemick on the street.  Her eyes filled with tears and he noticed she was trembling.

“Mr. Joe!” she cried.

“Yes, Fannie....”

“Are you going, too?”

“Going where?”

“Don’t you know? The mass-meeting at Carnegie Hall!”

He looked at her, smiling.

“I’ll go with you, if I may!”

So they went down together.  A jam of poor people was crowding the doors, and a string of automobiles drew up and passed at the curb.  Joe and Fannie got in the throng.  There was no room left in the orchestra and they were swept with the flood up and up, flight after flight, to the high gallery.  Here they found seats and looked down, down as if on the side of the planet, on the far-away stage filled with the speakers and the committees, and on that sea of humanity that swept back and up through the boxes to themselves.  All in the subdued light, the golden light that crowd sat, silent, remorseful, stirred by a sense of having risen to a great occasion; thousands of human beings, the middle class, the rich, the poor; Americans, Germans, Italians, Jews.  But all about him Joe felt a silent hatred, a still cry for vengeance, a class bitterness.  Many of these were relatives of the dead.