"O God," she sobbed, "when will all this be over? When will we get rid of this tragedy? I can't stand it longer."
"Listen," he whispered. "I swear to you, I swear, that from this day on my life belongs to those"--his voice broke--"dead girls ... to the toilers...."
She impulsively reached out a hand, and he seized it. Then, when she became more quiet, she murmured:
"I can see you mean it. Oh, this is wonderful! It is a miracle springing out of the fire!"
There was a strange throbbing silence that brought them close together. And Sally, glancing at him again, whispered:
"I can see how you have suffered! Let me help you ... all that I can!"
"Do? You must learn that for yourself. You must fit in where you belong. Do you know anything of the working-class movement?"
"Then I will make a list of books and magazines for you."
She sat down and wrote a list on a slip, and arose and handed it to him.
She was gazing at him again, gazing at the tragic face. Then she whispered:
"I believe in you.... Is there anything else?"
And again she reached out her hand and he clasped it. Her fine faith smote something hard in him, shriveled it like fire, and all at once, miraculously, divinely, a little liquid gush of lovely joy, of wonderful beatitude began to rise from his heart, to rise and overflow and fill him. He was being cleansed, he had expiated his guilt by confessing it to his accuser and receiving her strange and gentle forgiveness; tears came to his eyes, came and paused on the lashes and trickled down. He gulped a sob.
And he went out, a free man again, at the beginning of a new life.
Life has an upspringing quality that defies pain. Something buoyant throbs in the heart of the world--something untamed and wild--exultant in the flying beauty of romping children, glinting in the dawn-whitened sea, risen, indeed, through man into triumphant cities and works, and running like a pulse through his spirit. San Francisco is shattered, and there is death and sorrow and destruction: a whole population is homeless--whereupon the little human creatures come down from the hills like laughing gods and create but a more splendid city. Earth itself forges through its winters with an April power that flushes a continent with delicate blossoms and tints.