It gave him an undeniable throb of pleasure to find that she was not to be checked by such arguments. "But he shall be put back—I won't have any one discharged for such a reason! You must find him for me at once—you must tell him——"
Once more Amherst gently restrained her. "If you'll forgive my saying so, I think it is better to let him go, and take his chance of getting work elsewhere. If he were taken back he might be made to suffer. As things are organized here, the hands are very much at the mercy of the overseers, and the overseer in that room would be likely to make it uncomfortable for a hand who had so openly defied him."
With a heavy sigh she bent her puzzled brows on him. "How complicated it is! I wonder if I shall ever understand it all. You don't think Dillon's accident was his own fault, then?"
"Certainly not; there are too many cards in that room. I pointed out the fact to Mr. Truscomb when the new machines were set up three years ago. An operative may be ever so expert with his fingers, and yet not learn to measure his ordinary movements quite as accurately as if he were an automaton; and that is what a man must do to be safe in the carding-room."
She sighed again. "The more you tell me, the more difficult it all seems. Why is the carding-room so over-crowded?"
"To make it pay better," Amherst returned bluntly; and the colour flushed her sensitive skin.
He thought she was about to punish him for his plain-speaking; but she went on after a pause: "What you say is dreadful. Each thing seems to lead back to another—and I feel so ignorant of it all." She hesitated again, and then said, turning her bluest glance on him: "I am going to be quite frank with you, Mr. Amherst. Mr. Tredegar repeated to me what you said to him last night, and I think he was annoyed that you were unwilling to give any proof of the charges you made."
"Charges? Ah," Amherst exclaimed, with a start of recollection, "he means my refusing to say who told me that Dr. Disbrow was not telling the truth about Dillon?"
"Yes. He said that was a very grave accusation to make, and that no one should have made it without being able to give proof."
"That is quite true, theoretically. But in this case it would be easy for you or Mr. Tredegar to find out whether I was right."