But Janet waited no longer.  Pushing her way frantically through the people filling the yard she climbed the tower stairs and made her way into one of the spinning rooms.  The frames were stilled, the overseer and second hands, thrust aside, looked on helplessly while the intruders harangued, cajoled or threatened the operatives, some of whom were cowed and already departing; others, sullen and resentful, remained standing in the aisles; and still others seemed to have caught the contagion of the strike.  Suddenly, with reverberating strokes, the mill bells rang out, the electric gongs chattered, the siren screeched, drowning the voices.  Janet did not pause, but hurried from room to room until, in passing through an open doorway in the weaving department she ran into Mr. Caldwell.  He halted a moment, in surprise at finding her there, calling her by name.  She clung to his sleeve, and again she asked the question:—­

“Where’s Mr. Ditmar?”

Caldwell shook his head.  His answer was the same as Edward’s.  “I don’t know,” he shouted excitedly above the noise.  “We’ve got to get this mob out before they do any damage.”

He tore himself away, she saw him expostulating with the overseer, and then she went on.  These tower stairs, she remembered, led to a yard communicating by a little gate with the office entrance.  The door of the vestibule was closed, but the watchman, Simmons, recognizing her, permitted her to enter.  The offices were deserted, silent, for the bells and the siren had ceased their clamour; the stenographers and clerks had gone.  The short day was drawing to a close, shadows were gathering in the corners of Ditmar’s room as she reached the threshold and gazed about her at the objects there so poignantly familiar.  She took off her coat.  His desk was littered with books and papers, and she started, mechanically, to set it in order, replacing the schedule books on the shelves, sorting out the letters and putting them in the basket.  She could not herself have told why she should take up again these trivial tasks as though no cataclysmic events had intervened to divide forever the world of yesterday from that of to-morrow.  With a movement suggestive of tenderness she was picking up Ditmar’s pen to set it in the glass rack when her ear caught the sound of voices, and she stood transfixed, listening intently.  There were footsteps in the corridor, the voices came nearer; one, loud and angered, she detected above the others.  It was Ditmar’s!  Nothing had happened to him!  Dropping the pen, she went over to the window, staring out over the grey waters, trembling so violently that she could scarcely stand.

She did not look around when they entered the room Ditmar, Caldwell, Orcutt, and evidently a few watchmen and overseers.  Some one turned on the electric switch, darkening the scene without.  Ditmar continued to speak in vehement tones of uncontrolled rage.