nent peril to life and limb.
He rode on in a sort of daze, till he was roused by a sudden jerk and
the conductor's call of: "Central Park--all out here!" Moving with the
moving stream of passengers, he stepped out of the car, and refusing a
green transfer ticket he crossed the street and entered the park at
the Seventh Avenue gate, where the path makes a sudden dip from the
level of the street. The sun was near its setting, and the chilly wind
had swept the walks clear of tricycles and baby carriages. The
gray-coated guardian of the peace blinked at him from his sentry box.
Otherwise he had the park to himself, and found an intense pleasure in
the solitude, the keen air, and the sharp outlines of the dreary
autumn branches against the gorgeous sky.

The west had that peculiar brilliancy which the dwellers on Manhattan
would recognize as characteristic of their island in November, if
there were not so few who ever get a peep at the sky except
perpendicularly at noonday, as they emerge from rows of brownstone
houses or overshadowing buildings of fabulous height. Flint was in no
mood to sentimentalize over sunsets. The intensely human interests
before him drove Nature far away, as a cold abstraction akin to death;
yet half unconsciously the scene imprinted itself upon his senses, and
long afterward he recalled distinctly the pale grayish-blue of the
zenith shading into the rare, cold tint of green, and that again
barred over with light gossamer clouds, beneath which lay the glowing
bands of orange, red, and violet.

As the sun dropped, the temperature followed it. The wind whistled
more keenly through the bare branches. Flint turned up the collar of
his overcoat, thrust his hands into his pockets, and quickened his
pace.

The relief of rapid motion told upon his overstrained condition. By
the time he had rounded the lakes he was calmer. The ascent of the
steep, rock-hewn steps of the ramble rested his nerves as much as it
taxed his wind, and as he came stramming down the mall, his mind was
sufficiently detached from its own hopes and fears to be able to
realize that the overhanging elms recalled agreeably the long walk at
Oxford, and that the Cathedral spires were fine in the gathering dusk,
as one emerged from the Fifth Avenue entrance. The return to the world
of men stimulated him, and the long undulating waves of electric
lights seemed to beckon to him hopefully as he went on.

The afternoon was gone. That was one