Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/270

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mother's meeting, if you will tell me where it is. I shall even come to prayer meeting; and," she concluded vivaciously; "you will be borne away by me triumphantly in my new French car, which was sent out here weeks and weeks ago to be tuned up and ready for my coming."

On Wednesday night Miss Dounay made good her word. When the little prayer-meeting audience emerged from the chapel room of All People's, it gazed wonderingly at a huge black shape on wheels that rested at the curb with two giant, fiery eyes staring into the night.

The old sexton, looking down from the open doorway, saw his pastor shut into this luxurious equipage with two strange women, for Marien was properly accompanied by Julie, and nodded his head with emphatic approval.

"Some errand of mercy," he mumbled with fervency. "Brother Hampstead is the most helpful man in the world."

Nor was this the last appearance of Marien Dounay's shining motor-car before the door of All People's. It was seen also in front of the palm-surrounded cottage on the bay front, where John Hampstead lived with his sister, Rose, and the children, and enjoyed, at times, some brief seclusion from his busy, pottering life of general helpfulness.

Once the car even stopped before the home of the Angel of the Chair, perhaps because Hampstead had told Marien casually that of all women Mrs. Burbeck had alone been consistently able to understand him, and the actress wished to learn her secret. But the Angel of the Chair, while quite unabashed by the glamour of the actress-presence, nevertheless refused entirely to be drawn into talk about Brother Hampstead, who was usually the most enthusiastic subject of her conversation. Instead