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 in those early days of the strike, were frauds; were hiding their savings; but for the most part investigation revealed an appalling destitution, a resolution to suffer for the worker’s cause.  A few complained, the majority were resigned; some indeed showed exaltation and fire, were undaunted by the task of picketing in the cold mornings, by the presence of the soldiery.  In this work of dealing with the operatives Janet had the advice and help of Anna Mower, a young woman who herself had been a skilled operative in the Clarendon Mill, and who was giving evidence of unusual qualities of organization and leadership.  Anna, with no previous practise in oratory, had suddenly developed the gift of making speeches, the more effective with her fellow workers because unstudied, because they flowed directly out of an experience she was learning to interpret and universalize.  Janet, who heard her once or twice, admired and envied her.  They became friends.