In after-days Jack looked back upon this time with a feeling akin to
thankfulness for Carmen's utter heartlessness in regard to his affairs.
He trembled to think what might have happened to him if she had sent for
him and consulted him and drawn him again into the fatal embrace of her
schemes and her fascinations. Now he was simply enraged when he thought
of her, and irritated with himself.

These were dark days, days to which he looked back with a shudder.
He wrote to Edith frequently--a brief note. He was straightening out his
affairs; he was busy. But he did not give her his address, and he only
got her letters when the Major forwarded them from the club, which was
irregularly. A stranger, who met him at his lodgings or elsewhere, would
have said that he was an idle and rather dissipated-looking man. He was
idle, except in his feeble efforts to get work; he was worn and
discouraged, but he was not doing anything very bad. In his way of
looking at it, he was carrying out his notion of honor. He was only
breaking a woman's heart.

He was conscious of little except his own misfortunes and misery. He did
not yet apprehend his own selfishness nor her nobility. He did not yet
comprehend the unselfishness of a good woman's love.

On the East Side one day, as he was sauntering along Grand Street, he
encountered Dr. Leigh, his wife's friend, whom he had seen once at his
house. She did not at first recognize him until he stopped and spoke his
name.

"Oh," she said, with surprise at seeing him, and at his appearance,
"I didn't expect to see you here. I thought everybody had gone from the
city. Perhaps you are going to the Neighborhood Guild?"

"No," and Jack forced a little laugh, "I'm not so good as that. I'm kept
in town on business. I strolled over here to see how the other side of
life looks."

"It doesn't improve. It is one of the worst summers I ever saw. Since
Mr. Henderson's death--"

"What difference did Henderson's death make over here?"

"Why, he had deposited a little fund for Father Damon to draw on, and the
day after his death the bank returned a small check with the notice that
there was no deposit to draw on. It had been such a help in
extraordinary cases. Perhaps you saw some allusion to it in the
newspapers?"

"Wasn't it the Margaret Fund?"

"Yes. Father Damon dropped a note to Mrs. Henderson explaining about it.
No reply came."

"As he might have expected." Dr. Leigh looked up quickly as if