Henderson was much of the time absent—­at the West and at the South.  His every move was watched, his least sayings were reported as significant, and the Street was hopeful or depressed as he seemed to be cheerful or unusually taciturn.  Uncle Jerry was the calmest man in town, and his observation that Henderson knew what he was about was reassuring.  His serenity was well founded.  The fact was that he had been pulling in and lowering canvas for months.  Or, as he put it, he hadn’t much hay out. . .  “It’s never a good plan,” said Uncle Jerry, “to put off raking up till the shower begins.”

It seems absurd to speak of the East Side in connection with the financial situation.  But that was where the pinch was felt, and felt first.  Work was slack, and that meant actual hunger for many families.  The monetary solidarity of the town is remarkable.  No one flies a kite in Wall Street that somebody in Rivington Street does not in consequence have to go without his dinner.  As Dr. Leigh went her daily rounds she encountered painful evidence of the financial disturbance.  Increased number of cases for the doctor followed want of sufficient food and the eating of cheap, unwholesome food.  She was often obliged to draw upon the Margaret Fund, and to invoke the aid of Father Damon when the responsibility was too great for her.  And Father Damon found that his ministry was daily diverted from the cure of souls to the care of bodies.  Among all those who came to the mission as a place of refuge and rest, and to whom the priest sought to offer the consolations of religion and of his personal sympathy, there were few who did not have a tale of suffering to tell that wrung his heart.  Some of them were actually ill, or had at home a sick husband or a sick daughter.  And such cases had to be reported to Dr. Leigh.

It became necessary, therefore, that these two, who had shunned each other for months, should meet as often as they had done formerly.  This was very hard for both, for it meant only the renewal of heart-break, regret, and despair.  And yet it had been almost worse when they did not see each other.  They met; they talked of nothing but their work; they tried to forget themselves in their devotion to humanity.  But the human heart will not be thus disposed of.  It was impossible that some show of personal interest, some tenderness, should not appear.  They were walking towards Fourth Avenue one evening—­the priest could not resist the impulse to accompany her a little way towards her home—­after a day of unusual labor and anxiety.

“You are working too hard,” he said, gently; “you look fatigued.”

“Oh no,” she replied, looking up cheerfully; “I’m a regular machine.  I get run down, and then I wind up.  I get tired, and then I get rested.  It isn’t the work,” she added, after a moment, “if only I could see any good of it.  It seems so hopeless.”

“From your point of view, my dear doctor,” he answered, but without any shade of reproof in his tone.  “But no good deed is lost.  There is nothing else in the world—­nothing for me.”  The close of the sentence seemed wholly accidental, and he stopped speaking as if he could not trust himself to go on.