"Yes; I brought some with me when I came."
"And wood for the stove?"
"Yes, there's nothing you can do."
"All right. I'll be back early in the morning."
He glanced again at the all but pulseless figure on the bed, and turned toward the door.
"Barry!"
"Yes?"
She had risen and stood facing him.
"Barry, God bless you! Now go."
He went softly out through the bare room in which the grief-crazed mother still sat crouched and moaning, and passed thence into the night. But Mary Bradley sank back into her chair and let her tears flow unchecked. In happier days she would have scorned to ask God's blessing on any one. But now only God was great enough to be good to this witless and tender-hearted hero.
An hour later the pulse that had fluttered so long at the thin little wrist grew still. Mary Bradley performed such trifling offices as the dead require, drew the crumpled and untidy sheet up over the pitiful young face, and, through the remaining hours of the night, held hopeless vigil with a mother who would not be consoled.
At daybreak she went out into the face of the bleak March wind to hunt for Stephen Lamar.
She found him alone, in the early morning, at strike-headquarters, shivering over a half-heated stove.
"Steve," she said, "call it off. For God's sake, call it off!"
"Call what off, Mary?"
"The strike. Call it off. I can't stand this any longer. I can't spend another night like the one I've just been through. It's too terrible."
"But it was for your sake I brought it on."
"Then for my sake call it off. If the sin is mine I want my soul cleared of it to-day."
