Then, by one of those bewildering, kaleidoscopic shifts to which crowds
are subject, the scene changed, more troops arrived, little by little the
people were dispersed to drift together again by chance--in smaller
numbers--several blocks away. Perhaps a hundred and fifty were scattered
over the space formed by the intersection of two streets, where three or
four special policemen with night sticks urged them on. Not a riot, or
anything approaching it. The police were jeered, but the groups,
apparently, had already begun to scatter, when from the triangular
vestibule of a saloon on the corner darted a flame followed by an echoing
report, a woman bundled up in a shawl screamed and sank on the snow. For
an instant the little French-Canadian policeman whom the shot had missed
gazed stupidly down at her....

As Janet ran along the dark pavements the sound of the shot and of the
woman's shriek continued to ring in her ears. At last she stopped in
front of the warehouse beyond Mr. Tiernan's shop, staring at the darkened
windows of the flat--of the front room in which her mother now slept
alone. For a minute she stood looking at these windows, as though
hypnotized by some message they conveyed--the answer to a question
suggested by the incident that had aroused and terrified her. They drew
her, as in a trance, across the street, she opened the glass-panelled
door, remembering mechanically the trick it had of not quite closing,
turned and pushed it to and climbed the stairs. In the diningroom the
metal lamp, brightly polished, was burning as usual, its light falling on
the chequered red table-cloth, on her father's empty chair, on that
somewhat battered heirloom, the horsehair sofa. All was so familiar, and
yet so amazingly unfamiliar, so silent! At this time Edward should be
reading the Banner, her mother bustling in and out, setting the table for
supper. But not a dish was set. The ticking of the ancient clock only
served to intensify the silence. Janet entered, almost on tiptoe, made