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.”