had ever really wanted!  What had become of her?  What obscure and passionate impulse had led her suddenly to defy and desert him, to cast in her lot with these insensate aliens?  A hundred times during the restless, inactive hours of a sleepless night this question had intruded itself in the midst of his scheming to break the strike, as he reviewed, word by word, act by act, that almost incomprehensible revolt of hers which had followed so swiftly—­a final, vindictive blow of fate—­on that other revolt of the workers.  At moments he became confused, unable to separate the two.  He saw her fire in that other....  Her sister, she had said, had been disgraced; she had defied him to marry her in the face of that degradation—­and this suddenly had sickened him.  He had let her go.  What a fool he had been to let her go!  Had she herself been—!  He did not finish this thought.  Throughout the long night he had known, for a certainty, that this woman was a vital part of him, flame of his flame.  Had he never seen her he would have fought these strikers to their knees, but now the force of this incentive was doubled.  He would never yield until he had crushed them, until he had reconquered her.

He was approaching one of the groups of strikers, and unconsciously he slowed his steps.  The whites of his eyes reddened.  The great coat of golden fur he wore gave to his aspect an added quality of formidableness.  There were some who scattered as he drew near, and of the less timorous spirits that remained only a few raised dark, sullen glances to encounter his, which was unflinching, passionately contemptuous.  Throughout the countless generations that lay behind them the instinct of submission had played its dominant, phylogenetic role.  He was the Master.  The journey across the seas had not changed that.  A few shivered—­not alone because they were thinly clad.  He walked on, slowly, past other groups, turned the corner of West Street, where the groups were more numerous, while the number of those running the gantlet had increased.  And he heard, twice or thrice, the word “Scab!” cried out menacingly.  His eyes grew redder still as he spied a policeman standing idly in a doorway.

“Why in hell don’t you do your duty?” he demanded.  “What do you mean by letting them interfere with these workers?”

The man flinched.  He was apologetic.  “So long as they’re peaceable, Mr. Ditmar—­those are my orders.  I do try to keep ’em movin’.”

“Your orders?  You’re a lot of damned cowards,” Ditmar replied, and went on.  There were mutterings here; herded together, these slaves were bolder; and hunger and cold, discouragement at not being able to stop the flow toward the mills were having their effect.  By the frozen canal, the scene of the onslaught of yesterday, the crowd had grown comparatively thick, and at the corner of the lodging-house row Ditmar halted a moment, unnoticed save by a few who nudged one another and murmured.