"Yes," said Hampstead simply.
And somehow he didn't feel embarrassed at all now by the presence of death. He did not hesitate as to what to do. He just put out his hand and laid it in a brotherly way on the woman's shoulder, noticing as he did so that it was a frail, bony shoulder, and that it trembled as much from weakness as with emotion.
"Let the tears flow, sister," he suggested, "it is good for you."
And the tears did flow, like rivers, and all the while John's speech was flowing in much the same way, and with tears in it, until presently the woman looked up at him, surprised both at the manner and the matter of his speech. Was it he who had spoken,—this man who said he was only a book agent?
John too was surprised at his words, at their tone, at the superior faith and wisdom which they expressed. He really did not know he was going to say them. When spoken, it did not seem as if it could have been he that had uttered them, and he had again that awesome sense of a power within him not himself.
"You are a minister of God!" declared the Gloom Woman with sudden conviction.
Hampstead trembled. This was what the dead had whispered to him. It frightened him then, it frightened him now. He was not a minister of God. He was a man misplaced. He wanted to get out and fly. Yet before he could check her, the Gloom Woman had raised his hand and kissed it.
This made him want to fly more than ever; but he managed first to ask: "Is there anything more that I can do?"
There was, it seemed, and he did it; and then, getting into the outside as expeditiously as possible, he filled his lungs with long, refreshing drafts of the sun-filtered ozone
