"Sally!" she cried, and then she murmured: "It's you who don't need any one, Sally. You're strong and independent. You can live your own live. And you've helped make Joe strong. Wait, and see." And she went on to speak of Sally's work, of her influence in the place, of the joy she brought to others, and finally Sally said: "Forgive me for coming to you like a baby." "Oh, it's fine of you to come to me!" "So," cried Sally, "good-by." She found her hat and coat and slipped away, not daring to say good-by to Joe. But as she went through the dark winter night she realized how one person's happiness is often built on another's tragedy. And so Sally went, dropping for the time being out of Joe's life. * * * * * There was one event that took place two weeks after Myra's coming, which she did not soon forget. It was the great mass-meeting to celebrate the return of Rhona and some others who had also been sent to the workhouse. Myra and Joe sat together. After the music, the speeches, Rhona stepped forward, slim, pale, and very little before that gigantic auditorium. She spoke simply. "I was picketing on Great Jones Street. A man came up and struck me. I had him arrested. But in court he said I struck him, and the judge sent me to Blackwells Island. I had to scrub floors. But it was only for five days. I think we ought all to be glad to go to the workhouse, because that will help women to be free and help the strikers. I'm glad I went. It wasn't anything much." They cheered her, for they saw before them a young heroine, victorious, beloved, ideal. But when Myra called at Hester Street, a week later, Rhona's mother had something else to say. "Rhona? Well, you had ought to seen her when we first landed! Ah! she was a beauty, my Rhona--such cheeks, such hair, such eyes--laughing all the time. But now--ach!" She sighed dreadfully. "So it goes. Only, I wished she wasn't always so afraid--afraid to go out ... afraid ... so nervous ... so ... different." Myra never forgot this. It sent her back to her work with wiser and deeper purpose. And so she fought side by side with Joe through the blacks weeks of that January. It seemed strange that Joe didn't go under. He loomed about the place, a big, stoop-shouldered, gaunt man, with tragic gray face and melancholy eyes and deepening wrinkles. All the tragedy and pathos and struggle of the strike were marked upon his features. His face summed up the sorrows of the thirty thousand. Myra sometimes expected him to collapse utterly. But he bore on, from day to day, doing his work, meeting his committees, and getting out the paper. Here, too, Myra found she could help him. She insisted on writing the strike articles, and as Jacob Izon was also writing, there was only the editorial for Joe to do. The paper did not miss an issue, and as it now had innumerable canvassers among the strikers, its circulation gained rapidly--rising finally to 20,000.