After parting from Bessie at her father's door, John spent twenty-four hours in dumb agony at his hotel, devoting much time to uncounted attempts to frame a letter to her. But the one which finally went by the hands of a messenger was a mere cry that broke out of his heart. All it brought back was an answering cry,—four pages with impetuous words rioting over them. There were splotches of ink where the pen had been urged too recklessly, and as John held it up to the electric light, he tried to imagine there were watery stains upon it.
That night Hampstead left Los Angeles for San Francisco and spent an aimless Saturday brooding upon the ocean beach, needing no sight of the jutting Cliff House rocks upon which his lips had first touched Bessie's to embitter his reflections. Sunday morning, however, as early as nine o'clock, found him threading the graveled paths of the little park in Encina, and taking his place upon the rustic bench across from the dingy chapel. The cleat remained on the door. God was still nailed up!
John could not help thinking that he, too, was rather nailed up. Drawing Bessie's last letter from his pocket, he held it very tenderly for a time in his hand, then opened it to the final paragraph, which his eyes read dimly through a mist that overspread his vision like a curtain of fog.
"I shall always love you, John," her pen had sobbed, "—always; or at least, it seems so now. But you have hurt me in what touches a woman nearest. I have tried to understand—I think I have forgiven—but that full confiding trust!—Oh, John!"
The letter didn't cut off hope exactly; but it didn't kindle any bonfires, either. As John read it, he felt forlorn and helpless, and perceived that he had made rather a mess of things generally.
And, in the meantime, there was absolutely nothing more important for him to do than to sit on the park bench before this wretched-looking, dishonored little church and watch to see whether any children came to Sunday school.
Yes,—two were coming now. One was a little girl of six or seven, in a smock immaculately white. She was bareheaded, but her flaxen locks were bound with a bright blue ribbon that just matched the blue of her eyes. Her stockings were white, and her shoes were patent leather and very shiny. She walked with precise, proud steps, and looked down occasionally at the glinting tips of her toes to make sure that they were still unspotted. Once she stopped and touched them daintily with the handkerchief she carried in her hand, and then glanced up and around swiftly with a guilty look.
By her side walked little brother. He might have been four. He might have been wearing his first pants; his feet might have been uncomfortable; the elastic cord on his hat might have been pinching his throat most irritatingly, and probably was; but for all of that he trudged along sturdily, as careful of his four-year-old dignity as his sister obviously was of her motherly office.
He stretched his legs, too, to take as long steps as she, which was not so difficult, because his sister minced her gait a little.
Together they swung around the corner, and their feet pattered on the board walk leading across the sod to the chapel. Involuntarily they stopped a moment where Elder Burbeck had borrowed the plank, then stepped over the hole and mounted with confident, straining steps to the platform. The sister was now a little in advance, one hand holding her brother's and lifting stoutly as he struggled to surmount the unnatural height.