"All the same, I love you," groaned John, rising up to proclaim his passion hoarsely and then flinging himself again upon the bench, where with head hanging despondently, he continued: "I love you, and I don’t blame you for hating me, and you can punish me as long as you want and in any way you want. You can even try to fall in love with some one else if you like. Marry him if you want to. I love you, and I’ll keep on loving you. No punishment is too great for the thing I’ve done." The effect of this speech on the outraged Bessie was rather alarming to that indignant young lady. When John began to heap the reproaches higher upon himself, she felt a return to sympathetic consideration for him that was so great she dared not trust herself to hear more of them. "Take me home!" she commanded hurriedly, walking swiftly by him, but with scrupulous care that the swish of her white skirts should not touch the bowed head as she passed, and no more trusting herself to a second glance at that dejected tawny mop of hair than to hear more of his self-indictment. *CHAPTER XVIII* *THE HOUSE DIVIDED* 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.