“I don’t know any that is not respectable,” the Major replied, in a huffy manner.

“I beg your pardon,” said Jack.  “I want to reduce expenses.”

The Major did know of a place in the neighborhood where he lived.  He gave Jack the address, and thereafter the club and his usual resorts knew him no more.

As the days went by and nothing happened to break the monotony of his waiting and his fruitless search, he became despondent.  Day after day he tramped about the city, among the business portions, and often on the East Side, to see misery worse than his own.  He had saved out of the wreck his ample wardrobe, his watch, and some jewelry, and upon these he raised money for his cheap lodgings and his cheap food.  He grew careless of his personal appearance.  Every morning he rose and went about the city, always with less hope, and every night he returned to his lodging, but not always sober.

One day he read the announcement that Mrs. Rodney Henderson and Miss Tavish had sailed for Europe.  That ended that chapter.  What exactly he had expected he could not say.  Help from Carmen?  Certainly not.  But there had never been a sign from her, nor any word from Mavick lately.  There evidently was nothing.  He had been thrown over.  Carmen evidently had no more use for him.  She had other plans.  The thought that he had been used and duped was almost more bitter than his loss.

In after-days Jack looked back upon this time with a feeling akin to thankfulness for Carmen’s utter heartlessness in regard to his affairs.  He trembled to think what might have happened to him if she had sent for him and consulted him and drawn him again into the fatal embrace of her schemes and her fascinations.  Now he was simply enraged when he thought of her, and irritated with himself.

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?”