He did not answer her for a moment. He looked out wearily through the unclean window into the cheerless street. Then he said:
"I may as well tell you the truth, Mary. I can't stop it. It's gone too far. I've been up all night with the committee. There isn't a thing we can do."
"You can send the men back to work."
"We can't. Malleson won't take 'em. He won't have a union man in his plant. He says so, and he means it. Next week he opens up the mills to non-union labor. Then there'll be trouble. My God, there'll be trouble!"
His face was white and haggard, and his under lip trembled as he spoke. She looked at him incredulously.
"You don't mean to say," she asked, "that he won't let his old men go back to work? Not if you kept Bricky Hoover out?"
"Not if we sent Bricky Hoover straight to hell to-day. Not a single striker gets work at Malleson's mills again."
She dropped into the chair he had placed for her when she came in, and gripped the arms of it.
"But that"—she protested—"that isn't human."
"I know it isn't human. But what can we do? When Dick Malleson makes up his mind no power in the universe can move him."
"Why, Steve, women are starving and freezing. Little children are dying. The man has no heart, no soul."
"True! And if he tries to break the strike with scabs he'll have no mill."
"Steve! There won't be violence; there won't be bloodshed?"
"I can't tell what there'll be. The men are desperate, and they'll do desperate things."
"But I won't have bloodshed! I've got enough to answer for as it is. I tell you, Steve, you've got to stop it."
