would walk home. And the first man she met was Langham.

III

There was nothing extraordinary in it. His club was there on the corner, and it was exactly his hour for the club.

“It is so very fortunate … for me,” he said. “I did want to see you.… I am going north to-morrow.”

“Of course it’s about the dog,” she said, pleasantly.

He laughed. “I am so glad that you will accept him—”

“But I can’t,” she said; … “and thank you so much for asking me.”

For a moment his expression touched her, but she could not permit expressions of men’s faces to arouse her compunction, so she turned her eyes resolutely ahead towards the spire of the marble church.

He walked beside her in silence.

“I also am going north to-morrow,” she said, politely.

He did not answer.

Every day since her widowhood, every day for three years, she had decided to make that pilgrimage … some time. And now, crossing Union Square on that lovely afternoon late in April, she knew that the time had come. Not that there was any reason for haste. … At the vague thought her brown eyes rested a moment on the tall young man beside her.…

Yes … she would go … to-morrow.

A vender of violets shuffled up beside them; Langham picked up a dewy bundle of blossoms, and their perfume seemed to saturate the air till it tasted on the tongue.

She shook her head. “No, no, please; the fragrance is too heavy.”…

“Won’t you accept them?” he inquired, bluntly.

Again she shook her head; there was indecision in the smile, assent in the gesture. However, he perceived neither.

She took a short step forward. The wind whipped the fountain jet, and a fanlike cloud of spray drifted off across the asphalt. Then they moved on together.

Presently she said, quietly, “I believe I will carry a bunch of those violets;” and she waited for him to go back through the fountain spray, find the peddler, and rummage among the perfumed heaps in the basket. “Because,” she added, cheerfully, as he returned with the flowers, “I am going to the East Tenth Street Mission, and I meant to take some flowers, anyway.”

“If you would keep that cluster and let me send the whole basket to your mission—” he began.

But she had already started on across the wet pavement.

“I did not know you were going to give my flowers to those cripples,” he said, keeping pace with her.