“Through your hat—­that’s the way you’re talking now!” Susan said scornfully.  “Don’t use those worn-out phrases, Bill; don’t do it!  I’m sick of people who live by a bunch of expressions, without ever stopping to think whether they mean anything or not!  You’re too big and too smart for that, Bill!  Now, here you’ve given the cause a splendid push up, you’ve helped these particular men!  Now go somewhere else, and stir up more trouble.  They’ll find someone to carry it on, don’t you worry, and meanwhile you’ll be a sort of idol—­all the more influential for being a martyr to the cause!”

Billy did not answer.  He got up and walked away from her, turned, and came slowly back.

“I’ve been here ten years,” he said then, and at the sound of pain in his voice the girl’s heart began to ache for him.  “I don’t believe they’d stand for it,” he added presently, with more hope.  And finally, “And I don’t know what I’d do!”

“Well, that oughtn’t to influence you,” Susan said bracingly.

“No, you’re quite right.  That’s not the point,” he agreed quickly.

Presently she saw him lean forward in the darkness, and put his head in his hands.  Susan longed to put her arm about him, and draw the rough head to her shoulder and comfort him.

At breakfast time the next morning, Billy walked into Mrs. Cudahy’s dining-room, very white, very serious, determined lines drawn about his firm young mouth.  Susan looked at him, half-fearful, half-pitying.

“How late did you walk, Bill?” she asked, for he had gone out again after bringing her back to the house the night before.

“I didn’t go to bed,” he said briefly.  He sat down by the table.  “Well, I guess Miss Brown put her finger on the very heart of the matter, Clem,” said he.

“And how’s that?” asked Clem Cudahy.  His wife, in the very act of pouring the newcomer a cup of coffee, stopped with arrested arm.  Susan experienced a sensation of panic.

“Oh, but I didn’t mean anything!” she said eagerly.  “Don’t mind what I said, Bill!”

But the matter had been taken out of her hands now, and in less than an hour the news spread over the entire settlement.  Mr. Oliver was going to resign!

The rest of the morning and the early afternoon went by in a confused rush.  At three o’clock Billy, surrounded by vociferous allies, walked to the hall, for a stormy and exhausting meeting.

“The boys wouldn’t listen to him at all at first,” said Clem, in giving the women an account of it, later.  “But eventually they listened, and eventually he carried the day.  It was all too logical to be ignored and turned aside, he told them.  They had not been fighting for any personal interest, or any one person.  They had asked for this change, and that, and the other,—­and these things they might still win.  He, after all, had nothing to do with the issue; as a recognized labor union they might stand on their own feet.”