"May I ask where, Mademoiselle Farrell?" she asked, with such gentle pity audible in her voice, such kindly thoughts visible in her bright blue eyes, that, for a moment, I wavered. This was, at least, a shelter, a "retreat" for both my soul and my body. "I do not know as yet." "What can we do for you?" she urged. "But one thing: say nothing to any one in Richelieu-en-Bas that you have seen me, that I have been with you--that you know me, even." "As you will." I remained with the children who declared they should be desolate if I went on the same day that father and mother left them. Together the children and I watched the apple-boat, loaded to the gunwale, sail away from Iberville wharf. Two days after that, the children drove me to the station. I took the day express to New York. I decided to go to Delia Beaseley. II Not in its aspect of Juggernaut did the great city receive me that hot September night at half-past eight, but as a veritable refuge where I could lose myself among its millions. I welcomed the roar of its thoroughfares, the noises of its traffic; they deafened my soul. Jamie's voice saying: "We shall see you in Crieff next summer--you and Ewart," grew faint and far away. Cale's voice pleading, Cale's voice warning me: "You are doing him a bitterer wrong than your mother before you," became less distinct. The flashing electric signs were welcome and the white glaring lights of Broadway. They dazzled me; they helped to blind my inner sight to that vision of Mr. Ewart, standing on the shore of the little cove, far away in that northern wilderness, and looking into my eyes with a look that promised life in full. I rode down the Bowery oblivious of myself; I was lost in wonder at the multitudes. I knew those multitudes were composed of individuals; that those individuals were distinct the one from the other. Each had his experience, as I was having mine. Life was interpreting itself to each in different terms: to some through drink; to others through prostitution; to a few--thank God, only a few!--through threatened starvation; to a host through the blessing of daily work; to hundreds of unemployed through the misery of suspense. And love, hate, faithfulness, treachery--all were there, hidden in the hearts of those multitudes. Some lines of William Watson's kept saying themselves over and over to me in thought, as I watched those throngs; as I listened to the glare of street bands, the grinding of hurdy-gurdies, and heard the flow of street life, which is _the_ life, of the foreign East Side; "Momentous to himself, as I to me, Hath each man been that ever woman bore; Once, in a lightning-flash of sympathy, I _felt_ this truth, an instant, and no more." "Momentous to himself." Oh yes--not a soul among those thousands who was not "momentous to himself", no matter how low soever fallen! "Momentous to himself"--I watched the throngs, and _understood_.