Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/245

 looked up suddenly. "There's one thing you could do for me. You could send word around to the house that I'm not coming home to-night."

A grin lighted up the big face. "Sure I will. . . . I'll take the word myself." After a pause, "Where will you go?"

"I don't know . . . somewhere." He rose and put on Jim Baxter's coat and hat. "I'm going down to the Flats now."

"Your friends have been raising hell down there."

"Yes . . . that's why I want to go down there now. . . . They'll think I'm dead."

"No . . . they won't think that. That Dago friend . . . Krylenko . . . is that his name? He's been asking for you, and Mary Watts . . . Mary Conyngham she is now, she's been asking, too . . . almost every day."

He must have seen the sudden light come into Philip's eye, for he said suddenly, turning to the window, "There's a good girl . . . a brave one, too."

"Yes," said Philip.

"She's the kind of a wife a man ought to have. There aren't many like her."

"No."

There was a long silence and McTavish said, "They can't win down there . . . everything's against 'em. It'll be over in two months and a lot of 'em never be able to get work within ten miles of a mill ever again."

Philip said nothing. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of Jim Baxter's coat.

"They tried it too soon. They weren't strong enough. They'll win some day, but the time isn't yet."

Philip looked at him sharply. "I'm on their side.