Ought he to allow her to be here, risking her life for his people?
followed by the thought, How is he going to prevent it? For in this
hour the knowledge is born within him that Anne is not his property;
that he and she are fellow hands taking their orders from the same
Master; that though it be well for them to work together and help
each other, they must not hinder one another.

As yet John does not understand all this. The idea is new and
strange to him. He feels as the child in a fairy story on suddenly
discovering that the trees and flowers has he passed by carelessly a
thousand times can think and talk. Once he whispers to her of the
labour and the danger, but she answers simply, "They are my people
too, John: it is my work"; and he lets her have her way.

Anne has a true woman's instinct for nursing, and her strong sense
stands her in stead of experience. A glance into one or two of the
squalid dens where these people live tells her that if her patients
are to be saved they must be nursed away from their own homes; and
she determines to convert the large counting-house--a long, lofty
room at the opposite end of the wharf to the refinery--into a
temporary hospital. Selecting some seven or eight of the most
reliable women to assist her, she proceeds to prepare it for its
purpose. Ledgers might be volumes of poetry, bills of lading mere
street ballads, for all the respect that is shown to them. The older
clerks stand staring aghast, feeling that the end of all things is
surely at hand, and that the universe is rushing down into space,
until, their idleness being detected, they are themselves promptly
impressed for the sacrilegious work, and made to assist in the
demolition of their own temple.