I heard that he might go to
Baltimore. I thought of your wife. She was so interested in his work. Is
she well this summer?"

"Yes, thank you," said Jack, and they parted. But as she went on her
way his altered appearance struck her anew, and she wondered what had
happened.

This meeting with Mr. Delancy recalled most forcibly Edith, her interest
in the East Side work, her sympathy with Father Damon and the mission,
the first flush of those days of enthusiasm. When Father Damon began
his work the ladies used to come in their carriages to the little chapel
with flowers and money and hearts full of sympathy with the devoted
priest. Alone of all these Edith had been faithful in her visits,
always, when she was in town. And now the whole glittering show of
charity had vanished for the time, and Father Damon--The little doctor
stopped, consulted a memorandum in her hand-bag, looked up at the
tenement-house she was passing, and then began to climb its rickety
stairway.

Yes, Father Damon had gone, and Ruth Leigh simply went on with her work
as before. Perhaps in all the city that summer there was no other person
whose daily life was so little changed as hers. Others were driven
away by the heat, by temporary weariness, by the need of a vacation
and change of scene. Some charities and some clubs and schools were
temporarily suspended; other charities, befitting the name, were more
active, the very young children were most looked after, and the Good
Samaritans of the Fresh-Air Funds went about everywhere full of this new
enthusiasm of humanity. But the occupation of Ruth Leigh remained
always the same, in a faithful pertinacity that nothing could wholly
discourage, in a routine that no projects could kindle into much
enthusiasm. Day after day she went about among the sick and the poor,
relieving and counseling individuals, and tiring herself out in that
personal service, and more and more conscious, when she had time, at
night, for instance, to think, of the monstrous injustice somewhere, and
at times in a mood of fierce revolt against the social order that made
all this misery possible and hopeless.

Yet a great change had come into her life--the greatest that can come to
any man or woman in the natural order. She loved and she was loved. An
ideal light had been cast upon her commonplace existence, the depths of
her own nature had been revealed to herself. In this illuminating light
she walked about in the misery of this