She was glad for her neat back room—­for gas-lights and running water—­for the comfort and ease of life.  She was glad even to sit in the crowded dining-room, and that night she was glad to lie abed and hear the city’s heart pounding about her—­that old noise of whistles on the river, that old thunder of the elevated train.

But she found that nearness to Joe made it impossible to keep away from him.  Just as of old she had found excuses for going up to the trembling printery, so now she felt that somehow she must seek him out.  She kept wondering what he was doing at that particular moment.  Was he toiling or idling?  Was he with his mother?  Did he still wear the same clothes, the same half-worn necktie, the same old lovable gray hat?  What would he say, how would he look, if she suddenly confronted him?  Myra had to laugh softly to herself.  She saw the wonder in his face, the open mouth, the flashing eyes.  Or, would he be embarrassed?  Was there some other woman—­one who accorded with his ideals—­one who could share his life-work?  Of course she hoped that there was.  She hoped he had found some one worthy of him.  But the thought gave her intense misery.  Why had he thrown his life away and gone down into that foolish and shoddy neighborhood?  Surely when she saw him she would be disappointed by the changes in him.  He would be more than ever a fanatic—­more than ever an unreasonable radical.  He might even be vulgarized by his environment—­might have taken its color, been leveled down by its squalor.

She must forget the new Joe and cleave to the old Joe.  Next afternoon, walking out, almost involuntarily, she turned west and entered the Park.  The trees were naked, a lacy tracery of boughs against the deep-blue sky.  She followed the curve, she crossed the roadway, she climbed the hill to the Ramble.  She began to tingle with the keen, crisp air, and with the sense of adventure.  It was almost as if she were going to meet Joe—­as if they had arranged a secret meeting.  She took the winding paths, she passed the little pool.  There was the bench!  But empty.

Then she sat down on that bench, and looked out at the naked wilderness of trees, at the ice in the pond, at the sodden brown, dead grasses.  The place was wildly forlorn and bare.  When they had last been here the air had been tinged with the haunting autumn, the leaves had been falling, the pool had been deep with the heavens.  And again she thought: 

“This is the bench we sat on; and it was here, that morning, that we quarreled; this is the little pond, and those the trees—­but how changed! how changed!”