Abruptly the tall forms of these men sank from view; then the front ranks of people, crowding around, also began to sink, almost as ripe grain bows before a breeze, until even the people at the back could see that Brother Hampstead was kneeling, with the yellow crest of his hair falling in abandon about his face. The long, skeleton hand of Elder Lukenbill was sprawled over John’s bowed head, overlapped aggressively by the stout, red fingers of Elder Burbeck, while the dapper digits of the Dean of the Seminary capped and clasped the two hands and tangled nervously in the tawny locks themselves. "With this laying on of hands," the Dean was saying, still in that high lecture-room cackle, although his tone was deeply impressive, "I ordain thee to the ministry of Jesus Christ!" When, succeeding this, the voice of the District Evangelist had been heard in prayer, there followed an impressive waiting silence, in which no one seemed to know quite what to do, except to gaze fixedly at the face of John Hampstead, which continued as bloodless and as motionless as chiseled marble; until, bowed in her chair, as if she brooded like a real angel over the kneeling congregation, the rich contralto voice of Mrs. Burbeck began to sing: "Take my life and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee, Take my hands and let them move At the impulse of Thy love." Presently her voice changed to "Nearer My God to Thee", while other voices joined until the whole church was filled with the sound, and when the last note had died, the very air of the little chapel seemed tear-washed and clear. In this atmosphere John Hampstead arose, and when one hand swept back the yellow mass of hair, a kind of glory appeared upon his brow. Once an actor, once a man of ambition, he was now consecrated to the service of humanity. But he had not surrendered his love for Bessie Mitchell, and Marien Dounay was still in the world, mounting higher and higher toward the goal she had imperiously set for herself. *CHAPTER XX* *A WOMAN WITH A WANT* Five years walked along, and great events took place. The earthquake seized the San Francisco Bay district and shook it as a dog shakes a rat. Fire swept the great city on the peninsula almost out of existence; it made rich men poor, and hard hearts soft—for a few days at least—and by shifting populations and business centers, affected the east side of the Bay almost as much as the west, so that in all that water-circling population there was no business and no society, no man or woman or child even, that was thereafter quite as it or he or she had been.