III.—The Strike.
Jacques returned late in the night. He was not drunk, as Marianne feared he would be; but he was highly excited and talked of nothing less than setting fire to the factory they had quitted the evening before.
Next day he was no calmer. He was hardly at home all day. In the evening, Marianne, looking out of window, saw that something was in the air. The workmen were gathered in knots in the street, or walking about and talking together excitedly. On the following day Jacques did what he had never before done, made "Saint Monday." On Tuesday he returned to the factory, but it was with all the pains in the world and with prayers and tears that Marianne was able to induce him to do so.
"We are going to keep on till the end of the week," he said, when he returned home at night. And, sure enough, on Friday night he came back with a triumphant air, and threw his bag of tools into a corner of the room.
"It's done!" he said.
"What is done?" cried Marianne, in alarm.
"The factory, from to-night, is picketed."
"Picketed!"
"Yes, every hand forbidden to enter it: the first of ours who enters the gates will be a dead man!"
"By what right?"