The storm had quite ceased, and there was a pale rose-and-violet dawn-light in the east, and presently came effects like golden-feathered shafts shooting over the sky.  The road was alive with shovelling men, construction-cars of the railroad company were laboring back and forth to clear the tracks, householders were making their way from their doors to their gates, clearing their paths, lifting up the snow in great, glittering, blue-white blocks on their clumsy shovels.  Everywhere were the factory employes hastening to their labor; the snow was dropping from the overladen tree branches in great blobs; there was an incessant, shrill chatter of people, and occasional shouts.  It was the rally of mankind after a defeat by a primitive force of nature.  It was the eternal reassertion of human life and a higher organization over the elemental.  Men who had walked doggedly the morning before now moved with a spring of alacrity, although the road was very heavy.  There was a new light in their eyes; their cheeks glowed.  Ellen had no doubt whatever that if Robert Lloyd had not yielded the attitude of the employes of Lloyd’s would be one of resistance.  She herself seemed to breathe in resistance to tyranny, and strength for the right in every breath of the clear, crisp morning air.  She felt as if she could trample on herself and her own weakness, for the sake of justice and the inalienable good of her kind, with as little hesitation as she trampled on the creaking snow.  Yet she trembled with that deadly chill before a sense of impending fate.  When she returned the salutations of her friends on the road she felt that her lips were stiff.

“You look dreadful queer, Ellen,” Abby Atkins said, anxiously, when she joined her.  Maria also was out that morning.

“Have you heard what they are going to do?” Ellen asked, in a sort of breathless fashion.

“You mean about the wage-cutting?  Don’t look so, Ellen.”

Maria pressed close to Ellen, and slid her thin arm through hers.

“Yes,” said Ellen.  “What did John Sargent say when he got home last night?”

Abby hesitated a second, looking doubtfully at Ellen.  “I don’t see that there is any need for you to take all this so much to heart,” she said.

“What did he say?”

“Well,” Abby replied, reluctantly, “I believe Mr. Lloyd wouldn’t give in.  Ellen Brewster, for Heaven’s sake, don’t look so!”

Ellen walked on, her head high, her face as white as death.  Maria clung closely to her, her own lips quivering.

“What are the men going to do, do you think?” asked Ellen, presently, in a low voice.