She had lifted her clenched fist as she spoke. She let it fall again, and strode on, not even glancing at him. “Ye might try a thousand years, Joe, and ye’d not realise the feelin’s that come to me there at the Minettis’. The shame of it--not what she done to me, but what she made me in me own eyes! Me, the daughter of a drunken old miner, and her--I don’t know what her father is, but she’s some sort of princess, and she knows it. And that’s the thing that counts, Joe! ’Tis not that she has so much money, and so many fine things; that she knows how to talk, and I don’t, and that her voice is sweet, and mine is ugly, when I’m ragin’ as I am now. No--’tis that she’s so _sure!_ That’s the word I found to say it; she’s sure--sure--_sure!_ She has the fine things, she’s always had them, she has a right to have them! And I have a right to nothin’ but trouble, I’m hunted all day by misery and fear, I’ve lost even the roof over me head! Joe, ye know I’ve got some temper--I’m not easy to beat down; but when I’d got through bein’ taught me place, I went off and hid meself, I ground me face in the dirt, for the black rage of it! I said to meself, ’Tis true! There’s somethin’ in her better than me! She’s some kind of finer creature.--Look at these hands!” She held them out in the moonlight, with a swift, passionate gesture. “So she’s a right to her man, and I’m a fool to have ever raised me eyes to him! I have to see him go away, and crawl back into me leaky old shack! Yes, that’s the truth! And when I point it out to the man, what d’ye think he says? Why, he tells me gently and kindly that I ought to be sorry for her! Christ! did ye ever hear the like of that?” There was a long silence. Hal could not have said anything now, if he had wished to. He knew that this was what he had come to seek! This was the naked soul of the class-war! “Now,” concluded Mary, with clenched hands, and a voice that corresponded, “now, I’ve had it out. I’m no slave; I’ve just as good a right to life as any lady. I know I’ll never have it, of course; I’ll never wear good clothes, nor live in a decent home, nor have the man I want; but I’ll know that I’ve done somethin’ to help free the workin’ people from the shame that’s put on them. That’s what the strike done for me, Joe! The strike showed me the way. We’re beat this time, but somehow it hasn’t made the difference ye might think. I’m goin’ to make more strikes before I quit, and they won’t all of them be beat!” She stopped speaking; and Hal walked beside her, stirred by a conflict of emotions. His vision of her was indeed true; she would make more strikes! He was glad and proud of that; but then came the thought that while she, a girl, was going on with the bitter war, he, a man, would be eating grilled beefsteaks at the club! “Mary,” he said, “I’m ashamed of myself--” “That’s not it, Joe! Ye’ve no call to be ashamed. Ye can’t help it where ye were born--”