Something of what the working-women felt possessed Jasmine, but it was an impulse born of the moment, a flood of feeling begotten by the tragedy.  It had in it more of remorse than aught else; it was, in part, the agitation of a soul surprised into revelation.  Yet there was, too, a strange, deep, undefined pity welling up in her heart,—­pity for Rudyard, and because of what she did not say directly even to her own soul.  But pity was there, with also a sense of inevitableness, of the continuance of things which she was too weak to alter.

Like the two women of the people ahead, she held Rudyard’s hand, as she walked beside him, till he was carried into the manager’s office near by.  She was conscious that on the other side of Rudyard was a tall figure that staggered and swayed as it moved on, and that two dark eyes were turned towards her ever and anon.

Into those eyes she had looked but once since the rescue, but all that was necessary of gratitude was said in that one glance:  “You have saved Rudyard—­you, Ian,” it said.

With Al’mah it was different.  In the light of the open door of the manager’s office, she looked into Ian Stafford’s face.  “He saved my life, you remember,” she said; “and you have saved his.  I love you.”

“I love you!” Greatness of heart was speaking, not a woman’s emotions.  The love she meant was of the sort which brings no darkness in its train.  Men and women can speak of it without casting down their eyes or feeling a flush in their cheeks.

To him came also the two women whose husbands, Jacob and Jabez, were restored to them.

“Man, we luv ye,” one said, and the other laid a hand on his breast and nodded assent, adding, “Ay, we luv ye.”

That was all; but greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend—­and for his enemies, maybe.  Enemies these two rescued men were in one sense—­young socialists—­enemies to the present social order, with faces set against the capitalist and the aristocrat and the landlord; yet in the crisis of life dipping their hands in the same dish, drinking from the same cup, moved by the same sense of elementary justice, pity, courage, and love.

“Man, we luv ye!” And the women turned away to their own—­to their capital, which in the slump of Fate had suffered no loss.  It was theirs, complete and paying large dividends.

To the crowd, Brengyn, with gruff sincerity, said, loudly:  “Jim Gawley, he done as I knowed he’d do.  He done his best, and he done it prime.  We couldn’t ha’ got on wi’out him.  But first there was Mr. Byng as had sense and knowledge more than any; an’ he couldn’t be denied; an’ there was Mr. Stafford—­him—­” pointing to Ian, who, with misty eyes, was watching the women go back to their men.  “He done his bit better nor any of us.  And Mr. Byng and Jacob and Jabez, they can thank their stars that Mr. Stafford done his bit.  Jim’s all right an’ I done my duty, I hope, but these two that ain’t of us, they done more—­Mr. Byng and Mr. Stafford.  Here’s three cheers, lads—­no, this ain’t a time for cheerin’; but ye all ha’ got hands.”