Jean's eyes had dropped from her lover's set white face early in the recital. But she whispered his name.
The speaker up there had caught her fluttering breath, and went on so low that people strained to follow.
'In that great agony, even under the best conditions that money and devotion can buy, many a woman falls into temporary mania, and not a few go down to death. In the case of this poor little abandoned working girl, what man can be the fit judge of her deeds in that awful moment of half-crazed temptation? Women know of these things as those know burning who have walked through fire.'
Stonor looked down at the girl at his side. He saw her hands go up to her throat as though she were suffocating. The young face, where some harsh knowledge was struggling for birth, was in pity turned away from the man she loved.
The woman leaned down from the platform, and spoke her last words with a low and thrilling earnestness.
'I would say in conclusion to the women here, it's not enough to be sorry for these, our unfortunate sisters. We must get the conditions of life made fairer. We women must organize. We must learn to work together. We have all (rich and poor, happy and unhappy) worked so long and so exclusively for men, we hardly know how to work for one another. But we must learn. Those who can, may give money. Those who haven't pennies to give, even those people are not so poor but what they can give some part of their labour--some share of their sympathy and support. I know of a woman--she isn't of our country--but a woman who, to help the women strikers of an oppressed industry to hold out, gave a thousand pounds a week for thirteen weeks to get them and their children bread, and help them to stand firm. The masters were amazed. Week after week went by, and still the people weren't starved into submission. Where did this mysterious stream of help come from? The employers couldn't discover, and they gave in. The women got back their old wages, and I am glad to say many of them began to put by pennies to help a little to pay back the great sum that had been advanced to them.'
'She took their pennies--a rich woman like that?'
'Yes--to use again, as well as to let the working women feel they were helping others. I hope you'll all join the Union. Come up after the meeting is over and give us your names.'