Here he remained till dark, smoking his briar, watching the dirty, ragged children of the wretched wage-slaves at play; observing the exploited men and women on the park-benches, as they sought a little fresh air and respite from toil; and pondering the problems that still lay before him.  At times—­often indeed—­his thoughts wandered to the maple-grove and the old sugar-house, far away on the Hudson.  Memories of the girl would not be banished, nor longings for her.  Who she might be, he still knew not.  Unwilling to learn, he had refrained from looking up the number he had copied from the plate of the wrecked machine.  He had even abstained from reading the papers, a few days, lest he might see some account of the accident.  A strange kind of unwillingness to know the woman’s name possessed him—­a feeling that, if he positively identified her as one of some famous clan of robbers and exploiters, he could no longer cherish her memory or love the thought of how they two had, for an hour, sat together and talked and been good, honest friends.

“No,” he murmured to himself, “it’s better this way—­just to recall her as a girl in need, a girl who let me help her, a girl I can always remember with kind thoughts, as long as I live!”

From his pocket he took the little handkerchief, which wrapped the leaf, once part of her bed.  A faint, elusive scent still hung about it—­something of her, still it seemed.  He closed his eyes, there on the hard park bench, and let his fancies rove whither they would; and for a time it seemed to him a wondrous peace possessed him.

“If it could only have been,” he murmured, at last.  “If only it could be!”

Then suddenly urged by a realization of the hopelessness of it all, he stood up, pocketed the souvenirs of her again, and walked away in the dusk; away, through the park; away, at random, through squalid, ugly streets, where the first electric-lights were just beginning to flare; where children swarmed in the close heat, wallowing along the gutters, dodging teams and cars, as they essayed to play, setting off a few premature firecrackers and mocking the police—­all in all, leading the ugly, unnatural, destructive life of all children of the city proletariat.

“Poor little devils!” thought Gabriel, stopping to observe a dirty group clustered about an ice-cream cart, where cheap, adulterated, high-colored stuff was being sold for a penny a square—­aniline poison, no doubt, and God knows what else.  “Poor little kids!  Not much like the children of the masters, eh? with their lawns and playgrounds, their beaches and flowery fields, their gardens and fine schools, their dogs, ponies, autos and all the rest!  Some difference, all right—­and it takes a thousand of these, yes, ten thousand, to keep one of those.  And—­and she was one of the rich and dainty children!  Her beauty, health and grace were bought at the price of ten thousand other children’s health, and joy and lives!  Ah, God, what a price!  What a cruel, awful, barbarous price to pay!”