He glanced at his old friend,--the rosy, well-fed man; at the round face destitute of the carving of great purpose or deep anxiety; at the pretty girl with the Berkshire eyes who looked adoringly over the sleek elbow to which she clung. These two well-meaning, commonplace people seemed ennobled and beautified, as commoner far than they may be, by their human love and happiness. Bayard, in his shabby clothes, with his lonely face, watched them with a certain reverence. He thought--but when did he _not_ think of Helen? He wrote; she answered; they did not meet; he worked on patiently; and the winter went. Bayard drowned himself in his work with the new and conscious ardor of supreme renunciation. He thought of the woman whom he loved, as the diver at the bottom of the sea, when the pumps refuse to work, thinks of sky and shore and sun, of air and breath. * * * * * One bleak, bright February night, Bayard came out from his mission, and looked about Angel Alley anxiously. Bob was within, and Tony and Jean were safe; Job Slip was sober, and Tom, Dick, and Harry were accounted for. But Lena--Lena had not been seen at Christlove for now many weeks. The waywardness of the girl had long been sore at Bayard’s heart, and the step which he took that night was the result of thought and deliberate purpose. Afterwards he was glad to remember that he had acted on no one of those mere sentiments or impulsive whims which are the pitfalls of a philanthropic life. The hour was not early, decent people were scattering to their homes, and Windover was giving herself over to the creatures of the night. It was a windy night, and the snow blew in cold, white powder from the surface of drifts called heavy for the coast, and considered a sign of “a spell of weather.” There was a full moon; and the harbor, as one looked down between the streets, showed in glints and glimpses, bright and uneasy. The bellow of the whistling-buoy nine miles out, off the coast, was audible at firesides. The wind sped straight from Cape Cod, and was as icy as death.