He came and went, in the upper and in the underworld, almost as he would; saw whom he would and where he would. Jails, theaters, hotels, questionable side entrances, boulevards and alleys were accustomed to the sight of his comings and goings. If the stalwart figure of the man loomed at midnight in a dance hall on the Barbary Coast of San Francisco or in the darkest alleys of an Oakland water-front saloon, his presence was remarked, but his purpose was never doubted. He was there for the good of some one, to save some girl, to haul back some mother's boy, to fight side by side with some man against his besetting sin, whether it be wine or woman, or the gaming table. Therefore he could go to call on Marien Dounay at ten o'clock at night at the Hotel St. Albans as freely as on a brother minister at noon.
What had made him suddenly withhold his acceptance of the invitation was the entry of something of the old lightness of spirit into her tones for a moment, accompanied by the suggestion of a supper. He knew enough of the whimsical obliquities of Marien Dounay's nature to appreciate that he must meet her socially in order to minister to her spiritually; but he did not propose that the solemn purposes of his call should be made an opportunity for entertainment or personal display.
However, Marien had instantly divined her mistake. "Doctor Hampstead!" she began afresh, and this time her voice was low and her utterance rapid. "My season closed in New York last Saturday night. I was compelled to wait over three days to sign the contract for my London engagement. The moment that was out of the way, I rushed entirely across this country to see you! I arrived this morning. I came here at once. Oh, I must talk to you immediately and disabuse your mind of something—something terrible that I have waited five years to wipe out."
She clasped her hands nervously, and her luminous eyes grew misty, while she seemed in danger of losing her composure entirely, an unheard-of thing for Marien Dounay.
Her imploring looks and the impetuous earnestness of her appeal were already leading John to self-reproach for the sudden hardening of his judgment upon her; but it was the last sentence that decided him. He knew well enough what she meant, and something in him deeper than the minister leaped at it. If she could wipe out that grisly memory, the earliest opportunity was due her, and it would relieve him exactly as if a smirch had been wiped from the brow of womanhood itself. Besides, there had always been to him something puzzling and incomprehensible about that scene in the restaurant, which, as the years went by, was more and more like a horrible dream than an actual experience.
"I will come, Miss Dounay," he assured her gravely.
"Oh, I am so glad!" the woman exclaimed with a little outstretching of her hand, which would have fallen upon John's on the back of the pew, if it had not been raised at the moment in a gesture of negation as he said:
"But please omit the supper. I am coming at your call—eagerly—happily—but not even as an old friend; solely as a minister!"
This speech was so subtly modulated as to make its meaning clear, without the shadow of offense, and Marien's humbly grateful manner of receiving it indicated tacit acknowledgment of the exact nature of the visit.
Nevertheless, the minister found that in thus specifying he had written for himself a prescription larger than he could fill. Between the whiles of his busy afternoon and evening he was conscious of growing feelings of curiosity and personal interest that threatened to engulf the loftier object of his intended call. Old memories would revive themselves; old emotions would surge again. The spirit of adventure and the spice of expectancy thrust themselves into his thought, so that it was with a half-guilty feeling that he found himself at the hour appointed in the hotel corridor outside her room. He was minded to go back, but stood still instead, reproaching himself for cowardice. His very uncertainty gave him a feeling of littleness.