There were a few moments of painful silence. Miss Stanley frowned at the hearthrug, and Count Litvinoff sat looking at her with the expression of one who has asked a question to which he knows there can be but one answer. The answer came.
'Very well,' she said, 'I will do what you wish, for the sake of these men,' she added, becoming unnecessarily explanatory.
'I knew you would,' he said.
'But,' she went on hurriedly, 'there is one other thing I can do. I can help to make this time a little less hard to them. Will you—'
He interrupted her.
'No, no, no; my part is played. Miss Stanley must deal with that other matter by herself.'
Two hours later Clare Stanley called at Thornsett Edge, and, after a brief conversation with Roland, passed on to the village, having done the work she had set herself to do. It was, perhaps, the most painful act of her whole life. But she had performed it successfully, and so it came about that none of the men were punished, and that poor Isaac, who was a pensioner on Miss Stanley for a good many months, was the only one to suffer from that wild night's work.
Clare felt a sense of elation when the disagreeable task was over. She seemed herself to be making progress; and, though that day's enterprise had been suggested by Litvinoff, she knew that it would never have been undertaken if she had not been present when the Cleon met to discuss Socialism.
She had now an opportunity of using a little of her newly-acquired wealth, and she availed herself of it. More than one family in the village owed its salvation to her timely help, and when a week later she left for London she left behind her a sum of money in the hands of Mr Gates, to be used for the ex-mill hands—and a very grateful remembrance of her pretty, gracious, kindly ways, and of her substantial favours, too, in the hearts of these same hands and their families.