That night, it happened that Roland Graeme, harassed by a natural anxiety as to the results of the strike, with which he well knew public opinion would be sure to connect his efforts after reform, felt unusually wakeful, and, fearing a sleepless night unless he took some means to quiet his nervous excitement, set out for a long walk after his evening's work had been completed. This was a favorite expedient of his for securing sleep when wakeful, and sometimes it succeeded.

By a natural sort of fascination, he involuntarily took the direction of Mr. Pomeroy's mill, which at present occupied so much of his thoughts, and walked some distance past it, into the open country, till he felt as if the physical exercise had sufficiently quieted his nerves, and turned to retrace his steps under the light of a late, waning moon, which seemed, as such moons are apt to do, to give a sombre and ghostly aspect to the familiar features of the scene. As he approached the mill, in doing which he had to pass a long alley that led to a rear entrance close to a small canal, he heard the thick voices of men, evidently intoxicated, who seemed engaged in a noisy altercation. He was almost sure, even in the distance, that one of the voices was Jim Mason's, which he had often noticed as somewhat peculiar.

"I suppose they have been making a night of it at 'The Haven,' and are going home 'full,' as they call it," he thought to himself in disgust.

"The Haven" was a drinking saloon, close to the alley which ran to the rear of the works, and was also a part of Mr. Pomeroy's property; and, at a distance, he could not be sure whether they had come out of the saloon, or out of the alley. Just as he reached the alley, however, he stopped short, as the penetrating odor of burning wood made itself distinctly perceptible. With a flash, a possibility that had often occurred to him rushed to his mind, and he turned down the alley in order to find out its cause. As he proceeded, it grew more and more distinct. He came at last to a gate leading into the courtyard, and found that it yielded at once to his strong push, but whether this was due to its having been previously forced open, or to the unconscious force he had himself exerted, he did not stop to think, and could never afterwards be sure. But, once inside, he saw what made his heart stand still with dismay. An already strong jet of flame was licking its greedy way along the base of an out-building used for the deposit of rubbish from the mill, and, as he could see, evidently full of inflammable material. Just beyond it was a storehouse, which he felt sure must in all probability contain oil and other combustibles used in the works. There was not a moment to be lost, and he, single-handed, could do nothing. He rushed up the alley at full speed—shouting "Fire!" as he ran; smashed in the office windows, till he had fully roused the sleepy watchman, and sent him off to give the alarm, and then made his way, breathless, to a street in the near vicinity, in which lived his friend Turner and many more of the operatives. In less time than he could have believed possible, he was making his way back, at the head of a half-clad band of men who flocked after him, more from the irresistible impulse which draws men to a scene of excitement and danger, than from any definite purpose of saving Mr. Pomeroy's mill. There must still intervene some minutes, at least, before the fire-engines could reach the spot; and they were fateful minutes, for the fire was making rapid headway, and its lurid glare now overpowered the pallid moonlight.

"Now, Turner, you know all the ropes. Tell us what's best to do," said Roland.

"That storehouse is full of oil-barrels," said the man, gasping with breathless excitement. "If the boys would turn to and get them out into the water,—and there are axes here to tear up the roof and other connections!"

"Come on, boys!" Roland shouted, tearing off his coat. "Let's get at it at once! Some of you go and help Turner with the barrels, and I'll help with the chopping!"

But the men sullenly held back; and Roland, looking round, saw, in the bright glare of the leaping flames, that Jim and his friends, who must have heard the alarm and hurried back, were already there, and were evidently rousing the worst passions of their comrades, by their oaths and invectives against the owners of the mill. Roland fairly rushed at the surly, irresolute group of men who stood divided between the instinctive impulse to save their workshops, and the grudge they had so long silently nourished against the proprietor, and the "boss." Why should they toil to save a place in which they might never do another day's work? For there had been already floating rumors, spread by the manager, that Mr. Pomeroy intended to send away for non-union men.

But Roland felt the gravity of the crisis, and felt that he must get them to work, for he could easily see the disastrous consequences that would result, if it should be represented and believed—as it would certainly be—that the strike had resulted in an incendiary fire. For the next few moments, it seemed to him rather as if he were listening to some one else, than speaking in his own proper person,—that the strong, burning words, the voice of stern authority, came from some other personality, so little seemed his conscious volition to be concerned in it. In ringing tones he commanded them to follow. Were they going to sacrifice their very livelihood to a childish impulse of vindictive malice? Had they no concern for the valuable machines they had tended so long? Would they let the mill become a mass of ruin, ruin to themselves, not to the owner, who, of course, would have his insurance, and could easily bear any trifling loss?

His tone even more than his words had a prompt effect, and the reference to the machinery touched a chord of feeling of which they had been previously unconscious. Roland's words called up a picture of the wrecked and twisted bars and coils which they had seen, some months before, in the ruins of a burned mill. Should the familiar machinery, which had so long been like a part of their daily life, be wrecked like that? No! they must try to save it! And so the scale turned. That incalculable element, on which the action of a crowd depends, was swayed round to Roland's side, as he shouldered his axe, calling the men again to follow either Turner or himself. And presently, he had the satisfaction of seeing at work a sufficient force to hack and tear away the roof of the burning building, so as to prevent the fire from spreading to the main part of the factory on the one side or to the store house on the other. "Don't go at it so hard," he heard one and another exclaim, "you'll hurt yourself, Mr. Graeme!" as he wielded his axe with the unnatural force of a white-heat of excitement. And, though he could feel the hot breath of the flames as they rolled up their red tongues, amid the dense clouds of smoke that now began to rise from the oil-soaked ruins below that fed the conflagration, Roland felt himself thrilled with a keener, more passionate sense of delight than he remembered ever feeling in his whole life before, in the sensation of encounter with some deadly monster, calling forth all the reserve force of his being into a hand-to-hand struggle with the fiery foe.

Meantime Turner, with his following, was equally hard at work, rolling out the oil-barrels, till they were all safely turned over, out of harm's way, into the little canal in the rear, where Roland could see them bobbing about, as he came down from the roof with his improvised body of sappers, to give place to the play of the fire-engine, which had by this time arrived. Scarcely a moment had been lost from the time when the fire had been discovered, and, thanks to the preventive efforts of Roland and the men, the fire was confined to the building in which it had begun, and was speedily under control. As Roland stood, at length, relieved from his self-imposed task, and, panting with unaccustomed toil, watched the hissing stream of water which seemed to meet in mortal combat the cruel flames that turned, under its charge, into white clouds of harmless steam, he felt a fierce exultation that surprised himself, as if in watching the death-throes of some ruthless destroyer. He could, ever after, better understand the fascination which draws the brave firemen to their arduous task, or even—what it had previously been difficult for him to take in—the fierce joy of victory in battle.

"It's well you went for them as you did, Mr. Graeme," said the voice of Turner, startling him out of his absorption. "If they hadn't set to work to fight the fire, it would have been all over town by morning that the strikers had started it!"

"Of course, Turner, I felt that!" replied Roland, who did not feel at all sure himself, however, that some of them had not done it. "Did you see Jim Mason helping at all?"

"Oh, yes," he rejoined, "he took a hand at the barrels, in his surly way, muttering oaths all the time. But he couldn't keep still, if he wanted to, when there's anything going on—for all his sulkiness."

Roland said nothing more, but thought a good deal, as at last, tired, and smoked and grimy, he made his way homeward, after all further danger was over. He could not divest himself of the idea that Jim, in his present vindictive temper, had had a hand in the business. Still he had no positive evidence, and it would be most unjust to associate the young man's name with a grave crime, without any proof. He was heartily glad that he had none, and that his conscience relieved him of the burden of what, had he felt it a duty, he would have done so reluctantly. He talked the matter over with Miss Blanchard, one day when he met her at Mr. Alden's and walked home with her, after receiving warm congratulations on his action at the fire. He knew that she could be trusted to keep as rigid a silence as himself; and it was some relief to himself to unburden his mind of suspicions, though he carefully pointed out that they were no more.

"But how do you suppose the fire could have originated, if it was not an incendiary one?" asked Nora, anxiously.

"Oh, that is not difficult to imagine," he replied. "It might easily have started from spontaneous combustion. Turner tells me it is by no means uncommon for fire to originate spontaneously from rubbish of that kind, soaked with oil and dust, especially when the sun begins to have more power. He says that there had been gross carelessness on Willett's part, in not having had that accumulation disposed of long ago."

"Well, I'm glad to know it can be accounted for without Jim's intervention!" she said. "So, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt."

"Certainly," said Roland; but in his own mind he could not get over the painful impression, nor, to say truth, could Nora herself.

Of course there was a rumor that the fire had had an incendiary origin;—favored by Willett, to cover his own carelessness. But there was no shadow of proof, and the fact that the men had worked so well to save the property had great weight in preventing the rumor from gaining any general credence.

Mr. Pomeroy had tranquilly slept through that night, knowing nothing of the fire till next morning; for Willett, who had not arrived on the scene till the fire was almost subdued, did not think it worth while to disturb him about what seemed so trifling an affair, particularly as even the small damage sustained was covered by insurance. And as the firemen gave full publicity to the prompt turn-out of employÉs, and their successful efforts, with Roland at their head, to arrest the spread of the fire, Mr. Pomeroy could not avoid a certain grudging recognition of the fact that he owed to their promptness, in all probability, the prevention of a great deal more inconvenience than any that the strike itself could have caused. This consideration had, of course, its effect in bringing the contest to a speedy termination. It turned out, after all, that the examination of the books, and a consultation thereupon, satisfied Mr. Pomeroy that the firm could, without any real inconvenience, afford to pay its operatives at a higher rate. No doubt his daughter's remarks, taken in connection with Mr. Jeffrey's lecture, had their effect in bringing him to act on this knowledge. And another very weighty consideration, of course, had been the reception of the large orders, already referred to, and the difficulty and inconvenience of having, on short notice, to import a sufficient number of skilled workmen from a distance. And thus it came about that, two or three days after the fire, the leader of the strike received notice that, if the men would return to work at once, they should receive both the increase of wages and the Saturday half-holiday they had asked for. The girls, also, through Miss Pomeroy's urgent intercession, received a small increase of pay. And the fact that the firm could well afford to do this, without embarrassment, proved that the strike had justice on its side.

But, for all that, "public opinion," that is, the opinion of the upper stratum of Minton intelligence, was decidedly "down" on Roland Graeme and his troublesome organ. He was generally considered as the arch-conspirator against the peace and profits of the wealthy manufacturer, against the "good old ways," in which things had run so long without any of this tiresome fuss and friction, that over-zealous champions, false friends of the laborer, were so busy in creating.

The Minton Eagle, the most formidable rival of the Minerva, began to see a chance of making capital out of the evident sympathy of the latter paper with many of the views ascribed to Roland Graeme; and Dick Burnet soon received strong hints from the other joint-proprietors of the Minerva, that he had better take in sail in that direction, and steer a safer course, for, naturally, to the proprietors, it was a sine qu non that the paper should pay.

Dick Burnet had much more of the professional journalist than of the pure philanthropist in his composition, and though interested in labor-reform, he was by no means prepared to become a martyr in its cause. He told Roland, therefore, with regret, that he must not only discontinue the noticing and reprinting of articles from The Brotherhood, but that he feared it would be necessary to make arrangements for having it printed elsewhere, as the reputed connection was considered damaging to the Minerva's interests. This was, of course, a cause of no little worry and anxiety to Roland, as he had enough on his hands, without the charge of the mechanical arrangements; but it was a still greater pain to him to see his friend Burnet, as it seemed to him, deserting the cause of principle for that of expediency. However, his genial spirit of charity made allowances for his friend that he would not have made for himself, could such a descent on his own part have been conceivable. He talked the matter over with Mr. Dunlop, and the old Scotchman's practical shrewdness as well as his purse came to Roland's aid, in devising new arrangements.

This was not, however, the only matter pressing on Roland's mind, as February passed into March, and the first mild spring-like days came with their physically relaxing influence. He was sharing the fate of every idealist in reform, meeting with unlooked for discouragements and perplexities, pained by frequently encountering precisely the same spirit of selfishness in the employed that had so disgusted him in the employers; and when, occasionally, his friends, the "Knights," had a social entertainment of their own, his taste was jarred by the tone of the comic songs and recitations which seemed most to tickle the audience. The material enjoyed by audiences of greater pretension to "culture" might not, in general, be much more elevated, but at least the humor was not quite so broad, the wit not quite so coarse; and yet, while Roland felt jarred and dissatisfied, he admitted that he was unreasonable, that it was useless to expect fine fruit from ungrafted trees, and that the low tone of taste which he regretted was a natural result of lack of opportunity for true cultivation. It only intensified his desire for a better state of things; but, at the same time, these experiences often tended to depress and dishearten him. And the long strain of high pressure was telling on him, also.

He was uneasy, too, about Waldberg, who had of late developed a feverish anxiety to "make a fortune," quite alien to his former happy, easy-going, romantic disposition. Roland rightly guessed that a growing attachment to Miss Farrell was at the root of it, combined with the too evident fact that she greatly preferred him to her much less interesting fiancÉ; and that, if he only had money enough, he might easily carry the day, yet. Mr. Farrell was a broker, who had made his large fortune mainly by speculation; and young Waldberg had heard from him stories of "lucky ventures," till he had been inspired with a strong desire to try the experiment himself. This desire was encouraged and promoted by one of Mr. Farrell's clerks, and with him for counselor, Waldberg had begun to gamble in stocks and "margins" to such small extent as he was able, notwithstanding Roland's strong disapproval and remonstrances.

Roland would, however, seek some respite from these various subjects of disquietude by a visit to Mr. Alden's house, or by a long walk, in the bright, lengthening afternoons. One charming and unusually mild afternoon, the day before the public performance of the oratorio which had been in preparation so long, he had prolonged his walk by the river, past even the suburbs of the city, and was returning about sunset. He had reached the gateway leading to Mr. Pomeroy's handsome residence, which stood at a little distance from the street, when he noticed, just inside it, a sight that always made him sick at heart, and seemed like a dark blot on the brightness of the day. It was the sight of a woman, apparently young, who had been seated on the ground in the shelter of a cluster of trees, and whom two policemen were endeavoring to raise to her feet. Mr. Pomeroy, returning home a few minutes before, had discovered her sitting there, evidently in a state of intoxication, and, in his usual bland manner, had handed her over to the first policeman he espied. As she came out, assisted by the policemen, Roland got a glimpse of her face, and heard a word or two, in a soft English voice. He was horrified, as the conviction flashed on him that it was the woman he had gone to succor, on the December evening when we first made his acquaintance,—Miss Blanchard's protÉgÉe, Mrs. Travers.

He hastened up to the policemen, and begged them to let him call a cab and take her to the hospital. But the men only looked at him sneeringly, as they remarked:

"Oh, yes, no doubt you'd like to get her off! Expect she's an old friend. But she's got to go with us, now."

Roland drew back, disgusted and shocked, seeing the futility of further interference. But how could he tell Miss Blanchard of such a catastrophe!

As he stood watching their departure, something bright on the ground, glittering in the yellow, slanting sunlight, caught his eye. He picked it up. It was a small locket, apparently gold, though worn and dim, with a monogram on one side. It must, he thought, have been dropped by the poor woman as she came out. He put it into his pocket, to keep it safe for her, and went home to dinner, considering, as he walked on slowly, for once, which it would be better to do, to tell Miss Blanchard or to send word to the hospital. At any rate he would go to the police-station next day, and endeavor to procure her release.

But, after dinner, as he sat in his room, still undecided, he chanced to think again of the locket, and, taking it out, examined it more closely. It opened easily, disclosing two miniature photographs, and a lock of dark hair enclosed with one of them. He saw that one of the portraits was that of a lovely girl in whom he easily recognized "Mrs. Travers." But when he looked at the other he nearly dropped the locket in his amazement. For, despite the changes that ten years will make in a man's appearance, he could not doubt that the original of the portrait was—Mr. Chillingworth!