* * * * *
No one seeing the Mill owner as he viewed his possessions that day
could have believed that this was the wretched creature that Helen had
watched from the arbor. Away from the scenes of his business life Adam
Ward was like some poor, nervous, half-insane victim of the drug habit.
At the Mill, he was that same drug fiend under the influence of his
"dope."
His manner was calm and steady, with no sign of nervousness or lack of
control. His gray face--which, in a way, was the face of a
student--gave no hint of the thoughts and emotions that stirred within
him. As he looked about the great industrial institution to which he
had given himself, body, mind and soul, all the best years of his life,
his countenance was as expressionless as the very machines of iron and
steel and wood among which he moved--a silent, lonely, brooding spirit.
No glow of worthy pride in the work of his manhood, no gleam of
friendly comradeship for his fellow workmen, no joy of his kinship with
the great humanity that was here personified shone in his eyes or
animated his presence. Cold and calculating, he looked upon the human
element in the Mill exactly as he looked upon the machinery. Men cost
him a certain definite sum of dollars; they must be made to return to
him a certain increase in definite dollars on that cost.
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