Part 35

It was evident that all the vapor of her doubt and misunderstanding had been burned away. She was again the old Bessie. She had started to him by an instinct of loyalty, spurred by a love that had refused to die, yet, womanlike, was still doubting. But the moving picture which the papers of succeeding days had reeled before her eyes as her train sped westward; the solemn face of Rose, the teary eyes of Tayna, whom she had found sitting at the foot of the stairs outside; and now this glimpse of that stooping, passionately despairing, hopelessly broken figure were enough to banish doubt forever. They testified that John Hampstead, in the soul of him, was true--to love as to duty--that he had burned out the scar of his first disloyalty to her in the fires of intense suffering.

Her radiant beauty, the soft, trusting blue of her eyes, the wonderful witchery of smiling lips and dimpling cheeks, the proud, happy, worshipful look upon her face, all proclaimed the bounding joy with which she hurled herself again into his life.

John perceived this in ecstasy. Bessie was not lost to him, but won to him by what had happened. The mere perception threw him into a frenzy of joy, and yet it was a reversal of probabilities so sudden and so overwhelming that he dared not accept it unattested.

"But, Bessie," he protested. "But, Bessie?"

"But nothing!" she answered stoutly, flinging her arms once more about his neck and drawing his lips down to hers, while she passionately stamped them again and again with the seal of her love and faith.

With the submission of a child, and under the stimulus of such convincing, such deliciously thrilling demonstration as this, the strong-weak man surrendered unconditionally to an acceptance of facts at once so undeniable and so excitingly happy.

But the articles of surrender could not be signed in words. He drew her close to him and held her there long and silently, feeling his heart beat violently against her own, and at the same time his tissues filling with new and glowing strength. A sigh from Bessie, softly audible and blissfully long-drawn, broke the silence and the pose.

John held her at arm's length--his eyes a-dance with the emotional riot of an experience so foreign to the ascetic life which his character had forced upon him that he felt the wish for anchorage at which to moor himself and his joys. Such a mooring was offered by the long, wide window seat before the dormer which looked over palms and acacias to the Bay.

Taking Bessie by the hand, he led her to this tiny haven.

"Oh, John," she murmured, with a flutter in her voice and a sudden gust of happy tears, as she cuddled down against his shoulder, "it has been such a long, cruel wait, hasn't it? Such a hilly, roundabout way that we have traveled to know and get to each other at last."

"But now it's over," he breathed contentedly, swaying her body gently with his own.

As if a tide had taken them, they drifted out; two argonauts upon the sea of love with the window seat for a bark, and soon were cruising far out of sight of land. There was little talk. Words were so unnecessary. To feel the presence of each other was quite enough. For the time being, degrees and careers and private cars, courts and newspapers, actresses and diamonds, elders and church trials, were sunk entirely below the horizon.

Bessie was first to come back from this nebulous state of bliss to the more tangible realities of the situation. With her lover so close and so secure, she experienced a stirring of possessive instincts accompanied by an impulse to caretaking. John was hers now, and he required attention. With a soft hand she smoothed the yellow locks backward from his brow. With pliant fingers she sought to iron out the lines of care from his face, and with lingering, affectionate lips to kiss the tear-stiffness from his eyelids.

To the man of loneliness, these attentions were exquisitely delightful. They soothed and fortified him. They calmed his nerves and ministered to clarity of thought. This was well, for there were things that needed to be said as well as those which needed to be done.

Dusk was falling. John arose, lighted a pendant bulb in the center of the long attic, and sat down again, taking Bessie's hand in his while he told her the story of the diamonds as he had told it in court--told her so much and no more; then stopped. The cessation was abrupt, decisive, but also interrogatory. John could not tell Bessie more than he could tell any one else and be true to his vow. Would she appreciate this and acquiesce? Or would she resent it?

Bessie understood the question in the silence. Her answer was to snuggle closer and after allowing time for this action to interpret itself, to say:

"That must be the bravest, hardest thing you have done, John dear; to stop just there, when telling me."

"It was," he answered softly.

"It makes me trust you further than ever," she assured him, passing her hand under his chin and pulling his cheek to hers, again with that instinct of possession. "You must not be less true but more, because of me," she breathed softly.

"But there is one thing I can tell you," he continued, "which no one else knows nor can know now."

And then he told her of Marien's visit. The girl listened at first with cheeks flaming hot and her blue eyes fixed and sternly hard. Yet as the narrative proceeded, she grew thoughtful and then considerate, breaking in finally with:

"But she did it so wantonly, so irresponsibly; what reparation does she propose?"

"To immediately make a public confession that her charge against me was utterly false," replied John, strangely moved to speak defensively for Marien.

"She will do that?" exclaimed Bessie, her face alive with excitement and intense relief.

"She would have done it," answered John, "but I forbade her."

"Forbade her? Oh, John!" The soft eyes looked amazement and reproach.

"Yes," acknowledged John in a steady voice. "You see, her word would become instantly worthless. To be believed, her confession would have to be supported by the naming of the real thief."

"And is the saving of a thief worth more to you than your church--your good name--your--your everything?"

"In my conception, yes," John answered seriously. "That is what I have a church, a name, everything, for; to use it all in saving people--or in helping them, if the other is too strong a word."

As her lover spoke in this lofty, detached, meditative tone, Bessie held him off and studied him. This was the new John Hampstead speaking; the man she did not know; the man who, up to the hour when cruel scandal smirched it, had stirred this community with the example of his life. Before this new man she felt her very soul bowing. She had loved the old John. She adored the new.

"Oh, John! How brave! How strong! How right you are!" she exclaimed, with a note of adoration in her voice.

A pang of self-reproach shot through the big man.

"Not so brave--not so strong as I must--as I ought to be," he hastened to explain. "In fact, I have been doubting even if I were right, after all."

Bessie's startled look brought out of him like a confession the story of the last hours before her coming; the full meaning of the state in which she found him; how the burden of it all had overtoppled him; how she had come to find him not brave and certain, but doubting.

"But now," she affirmed buoyantly, "you are strong, you are certain again."

The very radiance, the fresh youthful happiness on the face of Bessie, checked the assent to this which was on his lips. He suddenly thought of what this action would mean to her, this beautiful, loving, aspiring young woman. She was his wife now in spirit. By some miracle of God their lives had in a moment been fused unalterably. He might bear a stigma for himself, but had he a right to assume a stigma for her?

"Why, John," she murmured, wonder mingling with mild reproach, as she saw him hesitate.

"Listen, my girl," began her lover, with infinite sympathy and tenderness in his manner, and gravely he re-sketched the elements in the situation as they would apply to her.

Bessie did listen, and as gravely as John spoke to her,--listened until her eyes were first perplexed and then downcast. Sitting thus, seeing nothing, she saw everything; all that it might mean to her to become the partner of this public shame. She thought of her college friends, of her mother with her social aspirations, of her strong and high-standing father and the circle of his business and personal associates; of the part she hoped herself to play in the new political life that was coming to her sex. She saw it and for a moment was afraid, cowering before it as her lover had cowered. John, in an agony of suspense, watched this conflict staging itself graphically upon the features he loved so deeply, gleaning as he waited another two-edged truth, and that truth this: _The love of a woman may make a man surpassingly stronger; it may also make him immeasurably weaker_. It depends on the woman. He was weaker now. He had accepted her, demanded her of God, and God had given her. She was part of him now. It must no longer be his judgment but their judgment which ruled. She was forming their judgment now. He leaned forward apprehensively, like a criminal awaiting his fate. He had surrendered his independence of action. Had he gained or lost thereby?

Bessie stood up suddenly. Her face was still white, but her square little chin with its softly rounded corners was firmly set.

"Your decision," she affirmed stoutly, "was the right decision. Your course has been the right course. You must not waver now. I command--I compel you to go straight forward. And I will stand with you--go out with you. From this moment on, your duty is my duty; your lot shall be my lot."

A smile of heavenly happiness broke like a sunset on the face of Hampstead.

"Thank God!" he murmured reverently; "thank God!"

And then as a surging Niagara of new strength rushed over him, he clasped her tightly, exclaiming enthusiastically: "I feel strong enough now, strong enough for everything!"

Standing thus, smiling blissfully into each other's faces, the lovers became again the two argonauts upon a shoreless, timeless sea. As they came back, Bessie, a look half mischievous and half bashful upon her face, pleaded softly:

"John! Ask me something, please?"

"Ask you something," her lover murmured, with a look of dutiful affection, "why, there is nothing more that I can ask." He sighed contentedly.

"But put it into words. Something to which I can answer Yes," she said, a happy blush stealing across her cheeks.

The big man gazed at her with a puzzled expression.

"So--so that our engagement can be announced in the papers to-morrow morning."

John asked her, grimacing delight in his sudden comprehension, and took her answer in a kiss. But immediately after he became serious.

"To-morrow morning?" he queried apprehensively; and then answered the interrogation himself. "No, not to-morrow, Bessie. Not soon. Later. When the issues are decided. When we know the worst that is to fall. Not now. You must protect yourself as well as your father and your mother from such notoriety!"

But Bessie's own uncompromising spirit flashed.

"No," she exclaimed with a stamp of her foot that was characteristic. "Now! This is when you need me! Now you are my affianced husband; I want the world to know that he is not as friendless as he seems. That we who know him best believe him most. Do you know, big man, that my parents cancelled their European trip and have been rushing across the continent with me in a special train faster than anybody ever crossed before, just to come and stand by you. Mother had a headache and is resting at the St. Albans, but father and I--why, father is down-stairs in the study waiting. He must have been there hours and hours. Father!"

Bessie had rushed across the room and flung open the door leading downward.

"Father," she cried. "Father! We are coming."

"What's the hurry?" boomed back a big, ironic voice that proceeded from the round moon of an amiable face in the open door of the study near the foot of the stairs. The face, of course, belonged to Mr. Mitchell, and he enlarged upon his first gentle sarcasm by adding: "I bought a thousand freight cars the other day in less time than it has taken you people to come to terms."

Nevertheless, he greeted his former employee with cordial and sincere affection, while Bessie, radiantly happy but a little confused, asked:

"What must have you been thinking all this time?"

"Mostly I was thinking what a superfluous person a father comes to be all at once," laughed Mr. Mitchell. "Isn't there anything I can do at all?" he asked, with mock seriousness.

"Yes," rejoined Bessie in the same spirit. "Telephone the papers to announce the engagement of your daughter to the Reverend John Hampstead, pastor of All People's Church."

"Oh, I did that after the first hour and a half," exclaimed the railroad man, laughing heartily.

But the situation was too grave, the feelings of all were too tense, to sustain this spirit of badinage for long. Bessie and Tayna fell upon each other with instant liking. Even Dick and Rose seemed able to forget the crisis which overhung them in the sudden advent of this beautiful young woman who had come into their ken again so suddenly and so mysteriously, and seemed to represent in herself and her father such a sudden and vast access of prestige and power to the cause of their uncle and brother.

John and his old employer sat down in the study for a quiet talk in which the minister related what he had told Bessie, the circumstances in which he stood, and finally and especially, his new compunction and Bessie's firm decision.

"She was right!" The heavy jaws of Mitchell snapped decisively. "The whole thing is a community brain storm. It will pass."

"The criminal charge," began John, feeling relieved and yet looking serious.

"Nothing to that at all," answered the practical Mitchell, with quick decision. "Ridiculous! You're morbid from brooding over all this. From the minute this woman comes to you with her admission, you must have just ordinary horse sense enough to see that between us all we can find a way to stop that prosecution without making it necessary to expose anybody at all."

Mitchell, observing Hampstead closely, saw that he was rather careless of this; that in fact he only thought of it when he thought of Bessie; that the one thing gnawing into him now was the action of the church. That was something outside of Mitchell's experience. Whether a church more or less unfrocked his future son-in-law was small concern. He was a man who thought in thousands of miles and millions of people.

"Come, Bessie," he called, "we must be getting back to the hotel."

"You will stay for dinner, Mr. Mitchell?" suggested John.

"No, I'll be getting back to mother. I just came to tell you that I am with you. My attorneys will be your attorneys. My friends and my influence will be your influence. Some of these newspapers may bark out of the other corner of their mouths after they've heard from me. Come on, Bessie!"

"But," demurred Bessie, "I'm not coming. I am going to the church to-night to sit beside John."

*CHAPTER XL*

*THE ELDER IN THE CHAIR*

The auditorium of All People's was cunningly contrived to bring a very large number of people close to each other and to the minister. Roughly semicircular, with bowled main floor and rimmed around by a gallery that edged nearer and nearer at the sides, it was possible to seat fifteen hundred persons where a man in the pulpit could look each individual in the eye, and except where the screen of the gallery broke in, each auditor could see every other auditor.

The special meeting for an object unannounced but clearly understood was, of course, an assemblage of the church itself; yet so great was the general interest in what was to transpire, and so willing were the moving spirits to play out their act in public, that no one was turned away. By an instruction from Elder Burbeck, the ushers merely sifted people, sending the members to the main floor, and the non-members up-stairs into the gallery.

Hampstead entered the church at precisely eight o'clock.

The auditorium was filled with the buzz of many voices, but as the pastor of All People's advanced down the aisle, this hum gradually ceased, and every eye was turned upon the man, who tall and grave, with features slightly wasted, nevertheless wore a look serenely confident and even happy.

This expression in itself was instant occasion for wonder and surprise. Was this man really unbreakable? Knowing nothing of what had happened in the day to encourage its pastor and make him strong, his congregation was much better prepared to see him as Bessie had found him three hours before than as he now appeared.

There were glances also for the faithful Rose, pale and worn, but bearing herself with true Hampstead dignity; for aggressive, wizened Dick, and for Tayna, emotional and ready, as usual, for tears or laughter. But there were more than glances for the lady who walked at the pastor's side proudly, with a possessive air as if she owned him and were glad to own him. There was searching scrutiny and attempt at appraisal.

All People's had never seen this woman before. She looked young; yet bore herself like a person of consequence. She was beautiful, but the dignity of her beauty was detracted from by dimples. Yet with the dimples went a masterful self-possession and a chin that was a trifle square and to-night just a trifle thrust out, while her head was a little tilted back and her blue eyes were a little aglint with shafts of a light something like defiance, as if to say: "Hurt him at your peril. Take him from me if you can!"

Who was she? No one knew. Everybody asked; but no one answered.

After standing in the aisle before his family pew, while Rose, Dick, Tayna, and Bessie filed in before him, the minister stood for a moment surveying the scene. As he looked, the serenity upon his features gave way to pain. The situation saddened him inexpressibly. He was like a refugee who returns to find his home ruined by the ravages of war. How peaceful and how helpful had been the atmosphere of All People's! How happily he had seen its walls rise and its pews fill! How many good impulses had been started there! What a pity that the note of inquisition and of persecution should now be sounded. How sad that strife should come! And over him of all beings! He had often looked upon a congregation torn by dissensions concerning its pastor, and he had said that no church should ever undo itself over him. When his time came to go, he would go quietly.

Yet now he was not going quietly, but that was because he felt it was not himself that was involved; instead it was a principle. Either this congregation existed to mediate love, helpfulness, and a charitable spirit to the world, or it had no reason for existence at all. It had better be disrupted, this gallery fall, this altar crumble, these walls collapse, these people be scattered to the winds, than All People's become a society for the advancement of pharisaism.

He noted that the gallery was packed, but on the main floor empty spaces stared at him from the central tier of pews. Half of All People's members must have remained away. John realized with new emotion what this meant: that there were men and women in his congregation who could not see their pastor arraigned like this, who could not bear to witness the rising waves of bitterness, the charges and the counter-charges, the incriminations, the malicious spirit of partisanship which invariably breaks out in times like these. But it meant too that these same soft-hearted folk were also soft in the spine; unwilling to take a stand with him; unwilling to be recorded pro or con upon a great issue like this; people for whom he had done a service so great that they could not now turn down their thumbs against him, yet lacking in the strength of character either to sit as his judges or to cast a vote in his favor.

From this thought of jelly-fish the minister turned, almost with relief to where, stretching widely behind the Burbeck pew, was a mass of close-packed faces, with super-heated resolution depicted upon their features. The bearing of these partisans in itself reflected how they had been solicited, inflamed, and organized. They were there like an army to follow their leader.

Good people, too, some of them! Doctor Hampstead's very best people. Yet to recognize them and their mood gave him a sense of personal power. He believed that he could walk over there and talk to these people ten minutes, and they would break like sheep from the leadership of Brother Burbeck. They would come pressing around him with tears and expressions of confidence. But it was not in John's purpose to do that. He was on trial. If on the record of his life among them, these people could condemn and oust him, his work had been a failure. It was as well to know it.

One thing more the minister took into account. The number of persons who, half in an attitude of aggressive loyalty and half in tearful sympathy had gathered in the tiers behind his own pew was less by half than that massed behind the Burbeck leadership. The issue was not in doubt. It had been decided already,--in the newspapers, in the court room, and in all this busy bell-ringing of the last two days.

And now, having seen as much and reflected as much as has been recorded, Hampstead sat down and slipped a furtive lover's hand along the seat until it found the hand of Bessie, and took it into his with a gentle pressure that was affectionately reciprocated.

But if to the congregation the entry of the minister and the woman of mystery by his side was sensation number one in this evening of sensations, the entry of the Angel of the Chair was sensation number two. Mrs. Burbeck, propelled as usual by Mori, the Japanese, was just appearing at the side door; and this time there was no trundling to the center between two factions. Instead, with Japanese intentness of purpose, and as if he had his instructions beforehand, Mori drove the chair straight across the neutral ground to the end of the Hampstead pew.

The church, seeing this act, grasped instantly its solemn meaning. The house of Burbeck was divided against itself. Mrs. Burbeck had often disapproved of her husband's course in church leadership, but she had never taken sides against him. To-night she did so. The issue was too great, too fundamental, to do otherwise. That it hurt her painfully was evident. Her face had lost its smile. The pallor of her cheeks was more wax-like than ever, and there was a droop in the corners of her mouth that no physical suffering had effected. But the lips were tightly compressed, and the valiant spirit of the woman looked resolutely out of her eyes. Those near and watching the face of her husband saw that this look affected him; saw him start as if he had hardly expected such action, hardly realized what it would be to find her thus opposing him. They even noted that a fleeting expression of doubt, of sudden loss of faith in his own course, came into the eyes of the man.

Nevertheless, although with a sigh at the burdens his faithfulness to the Lord so often compelled him to bear, Elder Burbeck set his spirit sternly upon its task. He was the Nemesis of God. He would not shrink though the flame scorched him, the innocent, while it consumed the guilty.