“I am going out, Marie.”

“Will madame have the carriage?”

“No, I will walk; I need exercise.  Tell Jackson not to serve lunch.”

Yes, she would walk; for it was his carriage, after all.

It was after mid-day.  In the keen air and the bright sunshine the streets were brilliant.  Margaret walked on up the avenue.  How gay was the city, what a zest of life in the animated scene!  The throng increased as she approached Twenty-third Street.  In the place where three or four currents meet there was the usual jam of carriages, furniture wagons, carts, cars, and hurried, timid, half-bewildered passengers trying to make their way through it.  It was all such a whirl and confusion.  A policeman aided Margaret to gain the side of the square.  Children were playing there; white-capped maids were pushing about baby-carriages; the sparrows chattered and fought with as much vivacity as if they were natives of the city instead of foreigners in possession.  It seemed all so empty and unreal.  What was she, one woman with an aching heart, in the midst of it all?  What had she done?  How could she have acted otherwise?  Was he still angry with her?  The city was so vast and cruel.  On the avenue again there was the same unceasing roar of carts and carriages; business, pleasure, fashion, idleness, the stream always went by.  From one and another carriage Margaret received a bow, a cool nod, or a smile of greeting.  Perhaps the occupants wondered to see her on foot and alone.  What did it matter?  How heartless it all was! what an empty pageant!  If he was alienated, there was nothing.  And yet she was right.  For a moment she thought of the Arbusers.  She thought of Carmen.  She must see somebody.  No, she couldn’t talk.  She couldn’t trust herself.  She must bear it alone.

And how weary it was, walking, walking, with such a burden!  House after house, street after street, closed doors, repellant fronts, staring at her.  Suppose she were poor and hungry, a woman wandering forlorn, how stony and pitiless these insolent mansions!  And was she not burdened and friendless and forlorn!  Tired, she reached at last, and with no purpose, the great white cathedral.  The door was open.  In all this street of churches and palaces there was no other door open.  Perhaps here for a moment she could find shelter from the world, a quiet corner where she could rest and think and pray.

She entered.  It was almost empty, but down the vista of the great columns hospitable lights gleamed, and here and there a man or a woman—­more women than men—­was kneeling in the great aisle, before a picture, at the side of a confessional, at the steps of the altar.  How hushed and calm and sweet it was!  She crept into a pew in a side aisle in the shelter of a pillar; and sat down.  Presently, in the far apse, an organ began to play, its notes stealing softly out through the great spaces like a benediction.  She fancied that the saints,