Christopher paid no heed. He went out with the old Methodist beside him. A group of men stood round something under the window which one of them had covered with a coat. They made way for the master, and not one of them, fathers and sons as they were, but felt a throb of thankfulness the small life had been taken in preference to his. But Christopher knelt down and raised the coat. "One shall be taken, the other left." It was old Choris who said it. A little murmur of assent went up from the circle, bareheaded now, like Christopher. He looked up with fierce, unspoken dissent to their meek acceptance of this cruel thing, and then replacing the coat very gently, stood up. "Has anyone gone to Ann Barty?" he asked quietly. Someone had gone, it appeared. Someone else had gone for a doctor. Christopher ordered them to carry the little form into the waiting-room, where it was laid on the table. Someone fetched a flag from the office and laid it over the boy. Without direct orders all work in the mill had ceased, little knots of men had gathered in the yard and there was a half-suppressed unanimous murmur from two hundred throats when a group of men came out of the room with the shattered window, carrying the still conscious form of the author of the outrage. It rose and fell and rose again threateningly. Christopher came out of the waiting-room and at sight of him it fell again. "They must go back to work," he said to the head foreman, who waited uneasily. "They can do nothing, and if we stop work there will be trouble." "Where are you going, sir?" The foreman ventured this much on sheer necessity. "To Ann Barty." "What shall I say to them?" Again he eyed the men uneasily. "Tell them I wish it," returned Christopher simply. "It's only an hour to closing time, but it will steady them down." He went back to the motor car he had been on the point of entering not fifteen minutes ago, and they made a lane for him to pass through, following him with their eyes till the gate closed behind him. The foreman stood on the steps of the office and gave the order to resume work. Not a man moved. "It's Mr. Aston's wish," he shouted, "if you've got any heart in you to show him what you feel, you'll attend to it." The crowd swayed and broke up, melted once more into units, who disappeared their several ways. The head foreman wiped his forehead and went into the office. Outside the ante-room to Christopher's private office the glass was strewn on the pathway, and that was the only sign in the mill yard of what had occurred. Christopher found a group already assembled round Ann Barty's cottage. They drew back from him with curious eyes. "Is anyone with her?" he asked, his hand on the latch. "Mrs. Toils and Jane Munden, what's her sister," said a woman, eagerly seizing a chance of a speaking part in this drama of life and death.