Silence again, broken only by the whispering of the summer night breeze rustling the leaves of the lawn oaks and the lapping of tiny waves on the lake beach. At the end of it, Griswold got up and groped for his hat. "I'm going home," he said. "It has been a pretty strenuous day, and there is another one coming. But before I go I want you to promise me one thing. Will you let me know immediately, by 'phone or messenger, if Mr. Galbraith takes a turn for the better?" "Certainly," she said; and she let him say good-night and get as far as the steps before she called him back. "There was another thing," she began, with the sober gravity that he could never be sure was not one of her many poses, and not the least alluring one. "Do you believe in God, Kenneth?" The query took him altogether by surprise, but he made shift to answer it with becoming seriousness. "I suppose I do. Why?" "It is a time to pray to Him," she said softly; "to pray very earnestly that Mr. Galbraith's life may be spared." He could not let that stand. "Why should I concern myself, specially?" he asked; adding: "Of course, I'm sorry, and all that, but----" "Never mind," she interposed, and she left her chair to walk beside him to the steps. "I've had a hard day, too, Kenneth, boy, and I--I guess it has got on my nerves. But, all the same, you ought to do it, you know." He stopped and looked down into the eyes whose depths he could never wholly fathom. "Why don't you do it?" he demanded. "I? oh, God doesn't know me; and, besides, I thought--oh, well, it doesn't matter what I thought. Good-night." And before he could return the leave-taking word, she was gone. XXXIV THE ABYSS Raymer's prediction that the real trouble would begin when the attempt should be made to start the plant with imported workmen was amply fulfilled during the militant week which followed the opening of hostilities. The appearance of the first detachment of strike-breakers, a trampish crew gathered up hastily by the employment agencies in the cities in response to Griswold's telegrams, was the signal for active resistance. Promptly the Iron Works plant and the approaches to it were picketed, and of the twenty-five or thirty men who came in on the first day's train only a badly frightened and cowed half-dozen won through the persuading, jeering, threatening picket line to the offices of the plant.