He had been sincere when he told Sanders that he would look out for Molly Shannon. The pinnacle this decision lifted him to, whether felt to be the truth or purely a sentimental advance, nevertheless gave him a view which seemed to do him good. The night after Sanders' visit, Fairfax slept in peace, and the next day he went over to Sanders' mother and asked to see Molly Shannon. She had left Nut Street, had run away without leaving any address. Fairfax did not push his chivalry to try to find her. He slept better than ever that night, and when during the month Sanders himself went to take a job further up in the State and the entire Sanders family moved to Buffalo, Fairfax's slumbers grew sounder still. At length his own restless spirit broke his repose. April burst over the country in a mad display of blossoms, which Fairfax, through the cab of his engine, saw lying like snow across the hills. He passed through blossoming orchards, and above the smell of oil and grease came the ineffable sweetness of spring, the perfume of the earth and the trees. Just a year ago he had gone with Bella and Gardiner to Central Park, and he remembered Gardiner's little arm outstretched for the prize ring he could never secure, and Bella's sparkling success. The children had been in spring attire; now Fairfax could buy himself a new overcoat and did so, a grey one, well-made and well-fitting, a straw hat with a crimson band, and a stick to carry on his Sunday jauntings--but he walked alone. He flung his books in the bottom drawer of his bureau, locked it and pitched the key out of the window. He would not let them tempt him, for he had weakly bought certain volumes that he had always wanted to read, and Nut Street did not understand them. "It's the books," he decided; "I can't be an engineer if I go on, nor will I be able to bear my lonely state."