garet walked on up the avenue. How gay
was the city, what a zest of life in the animated scene! The throng
increased as she approached Twenty-third Street. In the place where
three or four currents meet there was the usual jam of carriages,
furniture wagons, carts, cars, and hurried, timid, half-bewildered
passengers trying to make their way through it. It was all such a
whirl and confusion. A policeman aided Margaret to gain the side of the
square. Children were playing there; white-capped maids were pushing
about baby-carriages; the sparrows chattered and fought with as much
vivacity as if they were natives of the city instead of foreigners in
possession. It seemed all so empty and unreal. What was she, one woman
with an aching heart, in the midst of it all? What had she done? How
could she have acted otherwise? Was he still angry with her? The city
was so vast and cruel. On the avenue again there was the same unceasing
roar of carts and carriages; business, pleasure, fashion, idleness, the
stream always went by. From one and another carriage Margaret received a
bow, a cool nod, or a smile of greeting. Perhaps the occupants wondered
to see her on foot and alone. What did it matter? How heartless it all
was! what an empty pageant! If he was alienated, there was nothing. And
yet she was right. For a moment she thought of the Arbusers. She thought
of Carmen. She must see somebody. No, she couldn't talk. She couldn't
trust herself. She must bear it alone.

And how weary it was, walking, walking, with such a burden! House after
house, street after street, closed doors, repellant fronts, staring at
her. Suppose she were poor and hungry, a woman wandering forlorn, how
stony and pitiless these insolent mansions! And was she not burdened and
friendless and forlorn! Tired, she reached at last, and with no purpose,
the great white cathedral. The door was open. In all this street of
churches and palaces there was no other door open. Perhaps here for a
moment she could find shelter from the world, a quiet corner where she
could rest and think and pray.

She entered. It was almost empty, but down the vista of the great
columns hospitable lights gleamed, and here and there a man or a
woman--more women than men--was kneeling in the great aisle, before a
picture, at the side of a confessional, at the steps of the altar. How
hushed and calm and sweet it was! She crept into a pew in a side aisle
in the shelter of a pillar; and sat down