Part 46

“No. It's no use,” he said, bitterly; “they are all like me, or they know me.”

“And hasn't your wife some relations who are in business?”

“The last people I should apply to. No. I'm going to look around. Major, do you happen to know a cheap lodging-house that is respectable?”

“I don't know any that is not respectable,” the Major replied, in a huffy manner.

“I beg your pardon,” said Jack. “I want to reduce expenses.”

The Major did know of a place in the neighborhood where he lived. He gave Jack the address, and thereafter the club and his usual resorts knew him no more.

As the days went by and nothing happened to break the monotony of his waiting and his fruitless search, he became despondent. Day after day he tramped about the city, among the business portions, and often on the East Side, to see misery worse than his own. He had saved out of the wreck his ample wardrobe, his watch, and some jewelry, and upon these he raised money for his cheap lodgings and his cheap food. He grew careless of his personal appearance. Every morning he rose and went about the city, always with less hope, and every night he returned to his lodging, but not always sober.

One day he read the announcement that Mrs. Rodney Henderson and Miss Tavish had sailed for Europe. That ended that chapter. What exactly he had expected he could not say. Help from Carmen? Certainly not. But there had never been a sign from her, nor any word from Mavick lately. There evidently was nothing. He had been thrown over. Carmen evidently had no more use for him. She had other plans. The thought that he had been used and duped was almost more bitter than his loss.

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 for an explanation, but Jack ignored the query, and went on. “And Father Damon, is he as active as ever?”

“He has gone.”

“What, left the city, quit his work? And the mission?”

“I don't suppose he will ever quit his work while he lives, but he is much broken down. The mission chapel is not closed, but a poor woman told me that it seemed so.”

“And he will not return? Mrs. Delancy will be so sorry.”

“I think not. He is in retreat now, and I heard that he might go to Baltimore. I thought of your wife. She was so interested in his work. Is she well this summer?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Jack, and they parted. But as she went on her way his altered appearance struck her anew, and she wondered what had happened.

This meeting with Mr. Delancy recalled most forcibly Edith, her interest in the East Side work, her sympathy with Father Damon and the mission, the first flush of those days of enthusiasm. When Father Damon began his work the ladies used to come in their carriages to the little chapel with flowers and money and hearts full of sympathy with the devoted priest. Alone of all these Edith had been faithful in her visits, always, when she was in town. And now the whole glittering show of charity had vanished for the time, and Father Damon--The little doctor stopped, consulted a memorandum in her hand-bag, looked up at the tenement-house she was passing, and then began to climb its rickety stairway.

Yes, Father Damon had gone, and Ruth Leigh simply went on with her work as before. Perhaps in all the city that summer there was no other person whose daily life was so little changed as hers. Others were driven away by the heat, by temporary weariness, by the need of a vacation and change of scene. Some charities and some clubs and schools were temporarily suspended; other charities, befitting the name, were more active, the very young children were most looked after, and the Good Samaritans of the Fresh-Air Funds went about everywhere full of this new enthusiasm of humanity. But the occupation of Ruth Leigh remained always the same, in a faithful pertinacity that nothing could wholly discourage, in a routine that no projects could kindle into much enthusiasm. Day after day she went about among the sick and the poor, relieving and counseling individuals, and tiring herself out in that personal service, and more and more conscious, when she had time, at night, for instance, to think, of the monstrous injustice somewhere, and at times in a mood of fierce revolt against the social order that made all this misery possible and hopeless.