Until the Sea...

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Bessie Clark is loved by John Wendle and Jim Hall, sons of the sea. The former is a lifelong friend of her old father, but Bessie, with perverseness of youth, loves the latter. Wendle is a well-to-do individual, who has a good living; but the beloved Jim Hall is poor, far too poor to marry. He finally decides to go to sea in order to overcome the high cost of living and pick up a pittance against the day of his wedding. Bessie is naturally greatly distressed at this, but promises to wait for him until he comes back to claim her. As the weeks drag into months and years, Wendle, who is constantly on the ground, endeavors to influence Bessie favoring his own suit, but she is true to her promise to the absent. Her consistency is unshaken until one day her father is found dead in the surf. This quite breaks her. Fast following, comes a report published in a paper to the effect that Jim Hall, following the way of those who go down to the sea in ships, has been lost, utterly bereft, Bessie in her bereavement finally yields to the importuning of Wendle, and marries him. Then, alas, one fateful day, as she sits in the shadow of her little porch, making baby clothes, in walks Jim Hall. He meets Wendle as he comes upon the scene, then drags himself away, a broken and desolate man, coming home all too late for happiness.