d looking at her, seeking for words; and she guessed from his
embarrassment that he would say to her that he must go to America
before they were married.

"Do you mean, James, you will have to go at once?"

"Yes," he said, "at once. But I shall come back in time to be married
in August. It will only mean delaying our marriage a month."

They walked on a little way talking; every step he took James felt that
he was a step nearer the Bowery slum. And when they came to the gate
Bryden said:--

"I must hasten or I shall miss the train."

"But," she said, "you are not going now--you are not going to-day?"

"Yes, this morning. It is seven miles. I shall have to hurry not to
miss the train."

And then she asked him if he would ever come back.

"Yes," he said, "I am coming back."

"If you are coming back, James, why not let me go with you?"

"You could not walk fast enough. We should miss the train."

"One moment, James. Don't make me suffer; tell me the truth. You are
not coming back. Your clothes--where shall I send them?"

He hurried away, hoping he would come back. He tried to think that he
liked the country he was leaving, that it would be better to have a
farmhouse and live there with Margaret Dirken than to serve drinks
behind a counter in the Bowery. He did not think he was telling her a
lie when he said he was coming back. Her offer to forward his clothes
touched his heart, and at the end of the road he stood and asked
himself if he should go back to her. He would miss the train if he
waited another minute, and he ran on. And he would have missed the
train if he had not met a car. Once he was on the car he felt himself
safe--the country was already behind him. The train and the boat at
Cork were mere formulae; he was already in America.

The moment he landed he felt the thrill of home that he had not found
in his native village, and he wondered how it was that the smell of the
bar seemed more natural than the smell of the fields, and the roar of
crowds more welcome than the silence of the lake's edge. However, he
offered up a thanksgiving for his escape, and entered into negotiations
for the purchase of the bar-room.

He took a wife, she bore him sons and daughters, the bar-room
prospered, property came and went; he grew old, his wife died, he
retired from business, and reached the age when a man begins to feel
there are not many years in front of him, and that all he has had to do
in life has been don