“But now that I have found you, Janet, I will not let you go.”

“You’ve no rights over me,” she cried, in sudden alarm and anger.  “I’m not doing this work, I’m not wearing myself out here for you.”

“Then—­why are you doing it?” His suspicions rose again, and made him reckless.

“To help the strikers,” she said....  He could get no more out of her, and presently, when Anna Mower entered the room, he left it....

More than once since her first visit to the soup kitchen in Dey Street Janet had returned to it.  The universe rocked, but here was equilibrium.  The streets were filled with soldiers, with marching strikers, terrible things were constantly happening; the tension at Headquarters never seemed to relax.  Out in the world and within her own soul were strife and suffering, and sometimes fear; the work in which she sought to lose herself no longer sufficed to keep her from thinking, and the spectacle —­when she returned home—­of her mother’s increasing apathy grew more and more appalling.  But in Dey Street she gained calmness, was able to renew something of that sense of proportion the lack of which, in the chaos in which she was engulfed, often brought her to the verge of madness.  At first she had had a certain hesitation about going back, and on the occasion of her second visit had walked twice around the block before venturing to enter.  She had no claim on this man.  He was merely a chance acquaintance, a stranger—­and yet he seemed nearer to her, to understand her better than any one else she knew in the world.  This was queer, because she had not explained herself; nor had he asked her for any confidences.  She would have liked to confide in him—­some things:  he gave her the impression of comprehending life; of having, as his specialty, humanity itself; he should, she reflected, have been a minister, and smiled at the thought:  ministers, at any rate, ought to be like him, and then one might embrace Christianity—­the religion of her forefathers that Rolfe ridiculed.  But there was about Insall nothing of religion as she had grown up to apprehend the term.

Now that she had taken her courage in her hands and renewed her visits, they seemed to be the most natural proceedings in the world.  On that second occasion, when she had opened the door and palpitatingly climbed to the loft, the second batch of children were finishing their midday meal,—­rather more joyously, she thought, than before,—­and Insall himself was stooping over a small boy whom he had taken away from the table.  He did not notice her at once, and Janet watched them.  The child had a cough, his extreme thinness was emphasized by the coat he wore, several sizes too large for him.

“You come along with me, Marcus, I guess I can fit you out,” Insall was saying, when he looked up and saw Janet.

“Why, if it isn’t Miss Bumpus!  I thought you’d forgotten us.”

“Oh no,” she protested.  “I wanted to come.”