The Mormon Prophet

BY

LILY DOUGALL

Author of The Mermaid, The Zeitgeist, The Madonna of a Day, Beggars All, Etc. 

TORONTO

THE W. J. GAGE COMPANY (LIMITED)1899

COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 

_All rights reserved. _

PREFACE. 

In studying the rise of this curious sect I have discovered that certainmisconceptions concerning it are deeply rooted in the minds of many ofthe more earnest of the well-wishers to society. Some otherwisewell-informed people hold Mormonism to be synonymous with polygamy, believe that Brigham Young was its chief prophet, and are convinced thatthe miseries of oppressed women and tyrannies exercised over helplesssubjects of both sexes are the only themes that the religion of morethan two hundred thousand people can afford. When I have ventured inconversation to deny these somewhat fabulous notions, it has beenearnestly suggested to me that to write on so false a religion in otherthan a polemic spirit would tend to the undermining of civilised life. 

In spite of these warnings, and although I know it to be a mostdangerous commodity, I have ventured to offer the simple truth, as faras I have been able to discern it, consoling my advisers with theassurance that its insidious influence will be unlikely to do harm, because, however potent may be the direful latitude of other religiousnovels, this particular book can only interest those wiser folk who arebest able to deal with it. 

As, however, to many who have preconceived the case, this narrativemight, in the absence of explanation, seem purely fanciful, let mebriefly refer to the historical facts on which it is based. The Mormonsrevere but one prophet. As to his identity there can be no mistake, since many of the "revelations" were addressed to him by name--"ToJoseph Smith, Junior. " He never saw Utah, and his public teachings werefor the most part unexceptionable. Taking necessary liberty withincidents, I have endeavoured to present Smith's character as I found itin his own writings, in the narratives of contemporary writers, and inthe memories of the older inhabitants of Kirtland. 

In reviewing the evidence I am unable to believe that, had Smith'sdoctrine been conscious invention, it would have lent sufficient powerto carry him through persecutions in which his life hung in thebalance, and his cause appeared to be lost, or that the class of earnestmen who constituted the rank and file of his early following would havebeen so long deceived by a deliberate hypocrite. It appears to me morelikely that Smith was genuinely deluded by the automatic freaks of avigorous but undisciplined brain, and that, yielding to these, he becameconfirmed in the hysterical temperament which always adds to delusionself-deception, and to self-deception half-conscious fraud. In his dayit was necessary to reject a marvel or admit its spiritual significance;granting an honest delusion as to his visions and his book, his onlychoice lay between counting himself the sport of devils or the agent ofHeaven; an optimistic temperament cast the die. 

In describing the persecutions of his early followers I have modifiedrather than enlarged upon the facts. It would, indeed, be difficult toexaggerate the sufferings of this unhappy and extraordinarily successfulsect. 

A large division of the Mormons of to-day, who claim to be Smith'sorthodox following, and who have never settled in Utah, are strictlymonogamous. These have never owned Brigham Young as a leader, nevermurdered their neighbours or defied the law in any way, and so vigoroustheir growth still appears that they claim to have increased theirnumber by fifty thousand since the last census in 1890. Of all theircharacteristics, the sincerity of their belief is the most striking. InOhio, when one of the preachers of these "Smithite" Mormons wasconducting me through the many-storied temple, still standing huge andgray on Kirtland Bluff, he laid his hand on a pile of copies of the Bookof Mormon, saying solemnly, "Sister, here is the solidest thing inreligion that you'll find anywhere. " I bought the "solidest" thing forfifty cents, and do not advise the same outlay to others. The prophet'slife is more marvellous and more instructive than the book whoseproduction was its chief triumph. That it was an original productionseems probable, as the recent discovery of the celebrated Spaldingmanuscript, and a critical examination of the evidence of Mrs. Spalding, go far to discredit the popular accusation of plagiarism. 

Near Kirtland I visited a sweet-faced old lady--not, however, of theMormon persuasion--who as a child had climbed on the prophet's knee. "Mymother always said, " she told us, "that if she had to die and leaveyoung children, she would rather have left them to Joseph Smith than toany one else in the world: he was always kind. " This testimony as toSmith's kindheartedness I found to be often repeated in the annals ofMormon families. 

In criticising my former stories several reviewers, some of themdistinguished in letters, have done me the honour to remark that therewas latent laughter in many of my scenes and conversations, but that Iwas unconscious of it. Be that as it may, those who enjoy unconsciousabsurdity will certainly find it in the utterances of the self-styledprophet of the Mormons. Probably one gleam of the sacred fire of humourwould have saved him and his apostles the very unnecessary trouble ofbeing Mormons at all. 

In looking over the problems involved in such a career as Smith's, wemust be struck by the necessity for able and unprejudiced research intothe laws which govern apparent marvels. Notwithstanding the very naturaland sometimes justifiable aspersions which have been cast upon the workof the Society for Psychical Research, it does appear that thedisinterested service rendered by its more distinguished members is theonly attempt hitherto made to aid people of the so-called "mediumistic"temperament to understand rather than be swayed by their delusions. Whether such a result is as yet possible or not, Mormonism affords agigantic proof of the crying need of an effort in this direction; formen are obviously more ignorant of their own elusive mental conditionsthan of any other branch of knowledge. 

L. D. 

MONTREAL, December, 1898. 

THE MORMON PROPHET. 

_BOOK I. _

CHAPTER I. 

In the United States of America there was, in the early decades of thiscentury, a very widely spread excitement of a religious sort. Except inthe few long-settled portions of the eastern coast, the people werescattered over an untried country; means of travel were slow; news froma distance was scarce; new heavens and a new earth surrounded thesettlers. In the veins of many of them ran the blood of those who hadbeen persecuted for their faith: Covenanters, Quakers, sectaries ofdiverse sorts who could transmit to their descendants their instincts offiery zeal, their cravings for "the light that never was on sea orland, " but not that education by contact with law and order which, inolder states, could not fail to moderate reasonable minds. 

With the religious revivals came signs and wonders. A wave of peculiarpsychical phenomena swept over the country, in explanation of which thebelief most widely received was that of the direct interposition of Godor the devil. The difficulty of discerning between the working of thegood and the bad spirit in abnormal manifestations was to most mindsobviated by the fact that they looked out upon the confusing scenethrough the glasses of rigidly defined opinion, and according as theaffected person did or did not conform to the spectator's view of truth, so he was judged to be a saint or a demoniac. Few sought to learn ratherthan to judge; one of these very few was a young man by name EphraimCroom. He was by nature a student, and, being of a feeble constitution, he enjoyed what, in that country and time, was the very rare privilegeof indulging his literary tastes under the shelter of the parental roof. 

In one of the last years of the eighteenth century Croom the elder hadcome with a young wife from his father's home in Massachusetts to settlein a township called New Manchester, in the State of New York. He was aBaptist by creed; a man of strong will, strong affections, and strongself-respect. Taking the portion of goods which was his by right, hesallied forth into the new country, thrift and intelligence written uponhis forehead, thinking there the more largely to establish theprosperity of the green bay tree, and to serve his God and generationthe better by planting his race in the newer land. 

The thirtieth year after his emigration found him a notable person inthe place that he had chosen, with almost the same physical strength asin youth, stern, upright, thrifty, the owner of large mills, of asubstantial wooden residence, and of many acres of land. He was as richas he had intended to be; his ideal of righteousness, being of theobtainable sort, had been realised and strictly adhered to. The onedisappointment of his life was the lack of those sturdy sons anddaughters who, to his mind, should have surrounded the virtuous man inhis old age. They had not come into the world. His wife, a good womanand energetic helpmeet, had brought him but the one studious son. 

Ephraim was thirty-two years of age when a young girl, strong, beautiful, impetuous, entered under the sloping eaves of his father'shuge gray shingle roof. The girl was a niece on the maternal side. HerNew England mother had, by freak of love, married a reckless youngEnglishman of gentle blood who was settled on a Canadian farm. Piningfor her puritan home, she died early. The father made a toy of hisdaughter till he too died in the fortified town of Kingston, on thenorthern shore of Lake Ontario. No other relatives coming forward toassume his debts or to claim his child, their duty in the matter wasclear to the minds of the Croom household, and the girl was sent for. Her name was Susannah, but she herself gave it the softer form that shehad been accustomed to hear; when she first entered the sitting-room ofthe grave Croom family trio, like a sunbeam striking suddenly throughthe clouds on a dark day, she held out her hand and her lips to each inturn, saying, "I am Susianne. "

That first time Ephraim kissed her. It was done in surprise andembarrassed formality. He knew, when the moment was past that hisparents had perceived that Susannah needed more decorous training. Heconcurred in believing this to be desirable, for the manners that hadsurrounded him were very stiff. Yet the memory of the greeting remainedwith him, a thing to be wondered at while he turned the whisperingleaves of his great books. 

Susannah had travelled from the Canadian fort in the care of thepreacher Finney. He was a revivalist of great renown, possessing alawyer-like keenness of intellect, much rhetorical power, and Paulinesingleness of purpose. That night he ate and slept in the house. 

The original Calvinism of the Croom household had already been modifiedby the waves of Methodist revival from the Eastern States. Finney was anIndependent, but Martha Croom had an abounding respect for him; hisoccasional visits were epochs in her life. She had prepared many bakedmeats for his entertainment before the evening of his arrival withSusannah, but while he was present she devoted herself wholly to hisconversation. 

The feast was spread in the inner kitchen. In the square brick fireplaceburning pine sticks crackled, bidding the chill of the April eveningretire to its own place beyond the dark window pane. The paint upon thewalls and floor glistened but faintly to the fire and the small flamesof two candles that stood among the viands upon the table. 

The elder Croom sat in his place. He was burly and ruddy, a wholesomeman, very silent, very strong, a person to be feared and relied on. Ephraim believed that force went forth from his father's presence likeperfume from a flower. There were many kinds of flowers whose perfumewas too strong for Ephraim, but he felt that to be a proof of his ownweakness. 

Martha Croom, also of New England stock, was of a different type. Atfifty years she was still as slender as a girl--tall and too slender, but the small shapely head was set gracefully on the neck as a flowerupon its stalk. Her hair, which was wholly silvered, was still abundantand glossily brushed. Her mind was not judicial. She was more quick todecide than to comprehend, full of intense activities and emotions. 

"I have heard, " said the preacher slowly, "certain distressing rumoursconcerning--"

Mrs. Croom gave an upward bridling motion of her head, and a red spotof indignant fire came in each of her cheeks. "Joe Smith?", she cried. "A blasphemous wretch! And there is nothing, Mr. Finney, that so wellindicates the luke-warmishness into which so many have fallen as thathis blasphemy is made a jest of. "

Ephraim moved uneasily in his chair. 

Mr. Croom made a remark brief and judicial. "The Smiths are a _low_family. "

Mrs. Croom answered the tone. "If the dirt beneath our feet were tobegin using profane language, I don't suppose it would be beneath ourdignity to put a stop to it. "

"It is the Inquisition that my mother wishes to reinstate, " saidEphraim. 

The master of the house again spoke with the _naïveté_ of unquestioningbias. "No, Ephraim; for your mother would be the last to interfere withany for doing righteousness or believing the truth. "

Mrs. Croom's slender head trembled and her eyes showed signs of tears ather son's opposition. "If God-fearing people cannot prevent the mosthorrible iniquities from being practised in their own town, the laws arein a poor condition. "

"You have made no candid inquiry concerning Smith, mother; your judgmentof him, whether true or false, is based on angry sentiment and wilfulignorance. "

The preacher sighed. "This Smith is deceiving the people. "

"His book, " said Ephraim, "is a history of the North American Indiansfrom the time of the flood until some epoch prior to Columbus. It wouldbe as difficult to prove that it was not true as to prove that Smith isnot honest in his delusion. We can only fall back upon what Butler wouldcall 'a strong presumption. '"

Mrs. Croom, consciously or not, made a little sharp rap on the table, and there was a movement of suppressed misery like a quiver in herslender upright form. Her voice was low and tremulous. "If you'd gotreligion, Ephraim, you wouldn't speak in that light manner of one whohas the awful wickedness of adding to the words of the Book. "

Ephraim continued to enlighten the preacher in a stronger tone. "Whetherthe man is mad or false, almost all the immoralities that you will hearreported about him are, as far as I can make out, not true. He doesn'tteach that it's unnecessary to obey the ten commandments, or beat hiswife, nor is he drunken. He's got the sense to see that all that sort ofthing wouldn't make a big man of him. It's merely a revised form ofChristianity, with a few silly additions, that he claims to be theprophet of. "

Mrs. Croom began to weep bitterly. 

The elder Croom asked a pertinent question. "Why do you wilfullydistress your mother, Ephraim?"

"Because, sir, I love my mother too well to sit silent and let herthink that injustice can glorify God. "

It was a family jar. 

Finney was a man of about forty years of age; his eyes underover-reaching brows were bright and penetrating; his face was shaven, but his mouth had an expression of peculiar strength and gentleness. Helooked keenly at the son of the house, who was held to be irreligious. And then he looked upon Susannah, whose beauty and frivolity had notescaped his keen observation. He lived always in the consciousness of aninvisible presence; when he felt the arms of Heaven around him, wooinghim to prayer, he dared not disobey. 

He arose now, setting his chair back against the wall with preoccupiedprecision. "The spirit of prayer is upon me, " he said; and in a momenthe added, "Let us pray. "

Susannah was eating, and with relish. She laid down her bit of pumpkinpie and stared astonished. Then, being a girl of good sense and goodfeeling, she relinquished the remainder of her supper, and, followingher aunt's example, knelt beside her chair. 

The two candles and the firelight left shadowy spaces in parts of theroom, and cast grotesque outlines against the walls. Nothing wasfamiliar to Susannah's eye; she could not help looking about her. Ephraim was nearest to her. He was a bearded man, and seemed to her veryold. She saw that his face looked pale and distressed; his eyes wereclosed, his lips tight set, like one bearing transient pain. At the endof the table her uncle knelt upright, with hands clasped and faceuplifted, no feature or muscle moving--a strong figure rapt in devotion. On her other side, as a slight tree waves in the wind, her aunt's slimfigure was swaying and bending with feeling that was now convulsive andnow restrained. Sometimes she moaned audibly or whispered "Amen. " Acrossthe richly-spread table Susannah saw the preacher kneeling in a fullflickering glare of the pine fire, one hand upon the brick jamb, theother covering his eyes, as if to hide from himself all things that wereseen and temporal in order that he might speak face to face with theEternal. 

It was some time before she listened to the words of the prayer. Whenshe heard Ephraim Croom spoken of by name, there was no room in her mindfor anything but curiosity. After a while she heard her own name, andcuriosity began to subside into awe. After this the preacher broughtforward the case of Joseph Smith. 

Before the prayer ended Susannah was troubled by so strong a sense ofemotion that she desired nothing so much as relief. It seemed to herthat the emotion was not so much in herself as in the others, or like aninfluence in the room pressing upon them all. At length a kitten thathad been lying by the hearth got up as if disturbed by the sameinfluence, and, walking round the room, rubbed its fur against Ephraim'sknee. She saw the start run through his whole nervous frame. Opening hiseyes, he put down his hand and stroked it. Susannah liked Ephraim thebetter for this. The kitten was not to be comforted; it looked up in hisface and gave a piteous mew. Susannah tittered; then she felt sorry andashamed. 

CHAPTER II. 

Two quiet years passed, and Susannah had attained her eighteenthbirthday. 

On a certain day in the week there befell what the aunt called a"season" of baking. It was the only occasion in the week when Mrs. Croomwas sure to stay for some length of time in the same place with Susannahbeside her. Ephraim brought down his books to the hospitable kitchen, and sat aloof at a corner table. He said the sun was too strong upon hisupper windows, or that the rain was blowing in. The first time thatEphraim sought refuge in the kitchen Mrs. Croom was quite flustered withdelight. She always coveted more of her son's society. But when he camea third time she began to suspect trouble. 

Mrs. Croom stood by the baking-board, her slender hands immersed in aheap of pearly flour; baskets of scarlet currants lay at her feet. Allthings in the kitchen shone by reason of her diligence, and the windowswere open to the summer sunshine. Susannah sat with a large pan of redgooseberries beside her; she was picking them over one by one. Somewhere in the outer kitchen the hired boy had been plucking a goose, and some tiny fragments of the down were floating in the air. One ofthem rode upon a movement of the summer air and danced before Susannah'seyes. She put her pretty red lips beneath it and blew it upwards. 

Mrs. Croom's suspicions concerning Ephraim had produced in her a desireto reprove some one, but she refrained as yet. 

Susannah having wafted the summer snowflake aloft, still sat, her youngface tilted upward like the faces of saints in the holy pictures, herbright eyes fixed upon the feather now descending. Ephraim looked withobvious pleasure. Her head was framed for him by the window; a darkstiff evergreen and the summer sky gave a Raphaelite setting. 

The feather dropped till it all but touched the tip of the girl's nose. Then from the lips, puckered and rosy, came a small gust; the fragmentof down ascended, but this time aslant. 

"You didn't blow straight enough up, " said Ephraim. 

Susannah smiled to know that her pastime was observed. The smile was aflash of pleasure that went through her being. She ducked her laughingface farther forward to be under the feather. 

Mrs. Croom shot one glance at Ephraim, eager and happy in his watching. She did what nothing but the lovelight in her son's face could havecaused her to do. She struck the girl lightly but testily on the side ofthe face. 

Ephraim was as foolish as are most men in sight of a damsel in distress. He made no impartial inquiry into the real cause of trouble; he did notseek Justice in her place of hiding. He stepped to his mother's side, stern and determined, remembering only that she was often unwise, andthat he could control her. 

"You ought not to have done that. You must never do it again. "

With the print of floury fingers on her glowing cheeks the girl sat moreastonished than angry, full of ruth when her aunt began to sob aloud. 

The mother knew that she was no longer the first woman in her son'slove. 

It was without doubt, Mrs. Croom's first bitter pang of jealousy thatlay at the beginning of those causes which drove Susannah out upon astrange pilgrimage. But above and beyond her personal jealousy was aconsideration certainly dearer to a woman into whose inmost religiouslife was woven the fibre of the partisan. As she expressed it toherself, she agonised before the Lord in a new fear lest her unconvertedson should be established in his unbelief by love for a woman who hadnever sought for heavenly grace; but, in truth, that which she soughtwas that both should swear allegiance to her own interpretation ofgrace. In this prayer some good came to her, the willingness tosacrifice her jealousy if need be; but, after the prayer another thoughtentered into her mind, which she held to be divine direction; she mustfocus all her efforts upon the girl's conversion. In her heart all thetime a still small voice told her that love was the fulfilling of thelaw, but so still, so small, so habitual was it that she lost it as welose the ticking of a clock, and it was not with increased love forSusannah that she began a course of redoubled zeal. 

The girl became frightened, not so much of her aunt as of God. Thesimple child's prayer for the keeping of her soul which she had been inthe habit of repeating morning and evening became a terror to her, because she did not understand her aunt's phraseology. The "soul" itdealt with was not herself, her thoughts, feelings, and powers, but amysterious something apart from these, for whose welfare these must allbe sacrificed. 

Susannah had heard of fairies and ghosts; she inclined to shove thissort of soul into the same unreal region. The dreary artificial heaven, which seemed to follow logically if she accepted the basal fact of asoul separated from all her natural powers, could be dispensed withalso. This was her hope, but she was not sure. How could she be surewhen she was so young and dependent? It was almost her only solace tointerpret Ephraim's silence by her own unbelief, and she rested herweary mind against her vague notions of Ephraim's support. 

One August day Mrs. Croom drove with her husband to a distant funeral. 

In the afternoon when the sunshine was falling upon the fields of maize, when the wind was busy setting their ribbon-like leaves flapping, androcking the tree-tops, Ephraim Croom was disturbed in his private roomby the blustering entrance of Susannah. 

The room was an attic; the windows of the gable looked west; slantingwindows in the shingle roof looked north and south. The room was largeand square, spare of furniture, lined with books. At a square table inthe centre sat Ephraim. 

When Susannah entered a gust of wind came with her. The handkerchieffolded across her bosom was blown awry. Her sun-bonnet had slipped backupon her neck; her ringlets were tossed. 

"Cousin Ephraim, my aunt has gone; come out and play with me. " Then sheadded more disconsolately, "I am lonely; I want you to talk to me, cousin. "

The gust had lifted Ephraim's papers and shed them upon the floor. Helooked down at them without moving. Life in a world of thoughts in whichhis fellows took no interest, had produced in him a singularlyundemonstrative manner. 

Susannah's red lips were pouting. "Come, cousin, I am so tired ofmyself. "

But Ephraim had been privately accused of amative emotions. Offendedwith his mother, mortified he knew not why, uncertain of his ownfeeling, as scholars are apt to be, he had no wish then but to retire. 

"I am too busy, Susianne. "

"Then I will go alone; I will go for a long, long walk by myself. " Shegave her foot a defiant stamp upon the floor. 

He looked out of his windows north and south; safer district could notbe. "I do not think it will rain, " he said. 

A suspicion of laughter was lurking in his clear quiet eyes, which wereframed in heavy brown eyebrows and thick lashes. Nature, who had stintedthis man in physical strength, had fitted him out fairly well as tofigure and feature. 

Susannah, vexed at his indifference, but fearing that he would retracthis unexpected permission, was again in the draught of the open door. 

"Perhaps I will walk away, away into the woods and never come back; whatthen?"

"Indians, " suggested he, "or starvation, or perhaps wolves, Susianne. "

"But I love you for not forbidding me to go, cousin Ephraim. "

The smile that repaid him for his indulgence comforted him for an hour;then a storm arose. 

In the meantime Susannah had walked far. A squatter's old log-housestood by the green roadside; the wood of the roof and walls wasweathered and silver-gray. Before it a clothes-line was stretched, heaved tent-like by a cleft pole, and a few garments were flapping inthe wind, chiefly white, but one was vivid pink and one tawny yellow. 

The nearer aspect of the log-house was squalid. An early apple-tree atthe side had shed part of its fruit, which was left to rot in the grassand collect flies, and close to the road, under a juniper bush, the rindof melons and potato peelings had been thrown. There was no fence; thegrass was uncut. Upon the door-step sat a tall woman, unkempt-looking, almost ragged. She had short gray hair that curled about her temples;her face was handsome, clever-looking too, but, above all, eager. Thiseagerness amounted to hunger. She was looking toward the sky, noddingand smiling to herself. 

Susannah stopped upon the road a few feet from the juniper bush. Itoccurred to her that this was Joseph Smith's mother, who had thereputation of being a speywife. The sky-gazer did not look at her. 

"Are you Lucy Smith?"

The woman clapped her hands suddenly together and laughed aloud. Thenshe rose, but, only glancing a moment at the visitor, she turned hersmiling face again toward the sky. 

Into Susannah's still defiant mood darted the thought of a newadventure. "Will you tell my fortune?"

"Who am I to tell fortunes when my son Joseph has come home?" Again camethe excited laugh. "It's the grace of God that's fallen on this house, and Lucy Smith, like Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias, is the mother ofa prophet. "

"He isn't a prophet, " said Susannah, taking a step backward. 

"Seven years ago was his first vision, and all the people trampling uponhim since to make him gainsay it, but he stood steadfast. I dreamedit--when he was a little child I dreamed it, and it has come true. "Then, seeming to return into herself, her gaze wandered again to thesky, and she murmured, "The mother of a prophet, the mother of aprophet!"

On the other side of the road a few acres of ground were lying underdisorderly cultivation. In one patch the stalks of sweet maize had beenfastened together in high stooks, disclosing the pumpkin vines, whichbeneath them had plentifully borne their huge fruit, green as yet. Atthe back of this cultivated portion an old man, the elder Joseph Smith, was digging potatoes; his torn shirt fluttered like the dress of ascarecrow. Behind him and all around was the green wood, close-growingbushes hedging in the short trees of a second growth which covered along low hill. Above the hill ominous clouds like smoking censers werebeing rolled up from the east; the waving beards of the corn stooksrustled and streamed in wind which was growing colder. Susannah's dressand bonnet were roughly blown, and the clothes on the line flapped againaround the tall figure of the witch in the doorway. 

Susannah contradicted again with the scornful superiority of youth. "Idon't believe that your son is a prophet. "

Lucy Smith, having the sensitive receptive power of an hysteric, wassobered now by the determination of Susannah's aspect. She looked almostrepentant for a moment, and then said humbly, "If you'll come in and seeEmmar--Joseph and Emmar have come home--Emmar will tell you the same. "

A gray vaporous tint was being spread over the heavens, folding thisportion of earth in its shadow and darkening the interior of the cabinwhich Susannah entered. 

Upon a decent bedstead reclined a young woman. Everything near her wasorderly and clean. She belonged, it would seem, to a better class of thesocial order than the other, certainly to a higher type of womanhood. 

"What have you got? Is it a kitten?" asked Susannah. Advancing acrossthe dark uneven floor, she perceived that the reclining woman wascaressing some small creature beneath her shawl. 

"Emmar, Emmar, " said Lucy Smith, "tell Miss from the mill about theangel that appeared to Joseph. "

Emma Smith was a nobly made, dignified young creature. She looked atSusannah's beautiful and open countenance, and straightway drew forththe young thing she was nursing for her inspection. It was an infant buta few days old. Surprised, reverent, and delighted, Susannah bent overit. The child made them all akin--the squalid old hysteric, therespectable young mother, the beautiful girl in her silken shawl. 

Some minutes elapsed. 

"Emmar, Miss here doesn't know nothing about Joseph. She says it ain'ttrue. "

The young mother smiled frankly. "I suppose it seems very hard for youto believe, " she said, "but it's quite true, and the Lord told Josephwhere to find the new part of the Bible that he's going now to makeknown to the world. Shall I tell you about it?"

Susannah looked at her dazed; she had heretofore heard of the Smiths'doctrines as of the ravings of the mad. It had not occurred to her thata sane mind could regard them seriously. 

"It was seven years ago, " said Emma, "at the time the big revival washere and Joseph was converted; but he heard all the Methodists andBaptists and Presbyterians disputing together as to which of them wasright, and he felt so burdened to know which was right, and he felt asort of longing in him to be a great man, bigger than the revivalpreacher that had been here that all the people ran after, and Josephfelt that he could be bigger than that, and preach and tell all thepeople what was right, if they would all come to hear him. And he was soburdened that one day he went out into the woods, and he began cryingand confessing his sins and calling out to God to show him what wasright and make him a great preacher. Well, when he had been crying andgoing on like that for a long time, he just fell right down as if he wasasleep, and it was all dark till a light fell from heaven and an angelcame in the light. " Emma went on to tell of Smith's vision and firstcall, of his backsliding and final commission. 

Susannah stared. The young mother was a reality; the baby was a reality. Could the statements in this wild story bear any relation to reality?The old woman stood by, nodding and smiling. The young girl's mindbecame perplexed. 

"It was just before he began to translate the gold book that he came toboard at my father's in Susquehannah County, and he told me all aboutit, and I believed him; but my father wouldn't, so I had to go away withJoseph to get married; but since then father's forgiven us; and we'vebeen back home this last summer, and we've been to Fayette too, livingwith a gentleman called Mr. Whitmer, who believes in Joseph, and all thetime Joseph's been translating the book that was written on the goldplates that he found in the hill. It's been very hard work, and we'vehad to live very poor, because Joseph couldn't earn anything while hewas doing it, but it's done now, so we feel cheered. And now that it'sgoing to be printed, and Joseph can begin to gather in the elect verysoon, and now that baby's come--"

Emma stopped again; the last domestic detail seemed to involve her mindin such meshes of bliss that she lost sight of the end of her sentence. All her words had been calm, and the baby that lay upon the bed besideher stretching its crumpled rose-leaf fists into the air and makingstrange grotesque smiles with its little red chin and cheeks wasundoubtedly a true baby, a good and delightful thing in Susannah'sestimation. Had the Bible in the hill been a true Bible? Susannahintuitively knew that Emma Smith, bending with grave rapture over herfirstborn, was not trying to deceive her. 

"It seems to me, " she said, "that it is terribly wicked of you tobelieve about this Bible. " Her utterance became thick with her risingindignation. "How can you sit and hold that child and say such terriblywicked things?" She could not have told why she referred to the child;the moment before it was spoken she had not formulated the thought. Shewas not old enough to reason about the sacredness of babies; she onlyfelt. 

The tears started to Emma's eyes. She clasped her child to her breast. "Yes, I know how you feel. I felt that way too myself, and sometimeseven yet it frightens me; but, you see, I know it is true, so it must beright. But I've given up expecting other people to believe it just yet, until Joseph is allowed to preach, and then it's been revealed to himthat the nations shall be gathered in. Only you looked so--sobeautiful--you see, I thought perhaps God might have sent you to be afriend to me. I have no friends because of the way they persecuteJoseph. "

Susannah turned in incredulous wrath and tramped, young and haughty, tothe outer door. The first drops of a heavy shower were falling; shehesitated. 

"But tell her about the witnesses, Emmar. " Old Lucy stood half-waybetween the bed and the door, making nods and becks in her exciteddesire that Susannah should be impressed. "For when the dear Lord sawthat folks wouldn't b'lieve Joseph, He didn't leave him withoutwitnesses. "

Susannah, stopped by the weather, felt more willing to conciliate. Shereturned gloomily within the sound of Emma's gentle voice. 

"It was Mr. Cowdery and Mr. Whitmer and Mr. Harris, " Emma said. "Mr. Cowdery and Mr. Whitmer saw the gold plates held in the air, as it wereby hands they couldn't see, but Martin Harris he had to withdraw himselfbecause he couldn't see the vision, and he went away by himself andsobbed and cried. But Joseph went and put his arm around him and prayedthat his faith might be strengthened, and then he saw it. So they threehave written their testimony in the front of the book that's beingprinted. "

A storm had now broken upon the house in torrents. The door was shut. Emma wrapped her child closer in her shawl. Susannah sat sulky anddisconsolate. She had a vague idea that the vengeance of heaven wasovertaking her for merely listening to such heresy. Over against thiswas a shadowy doubt whether it might not be true, roused by Emma'scontinued persistency. 

"Is it any easier to believe that those things happened to folks whenthe Bible was written? Don't you believe that God appeared to Moses andSamuel and told them the very words to write down, and showed themvisions; and isn't He the same God yesterday, to-day, and for ever? It'sjust what it says in the Bible shall come about in the latter days. It'sbecause of the great apostasy of the Church, no one really believing inJesus Christ, that a new prophet had to appear--that's Joseph. "

"They do believe, " Susannah spoke sullenly. 

"Well, there's your aunt, Mis' Croom. Now she's as good as there is inthe modern Church, isn't she? She's doing all she can to save her soul. She can't do it, for she don't believe. Why the Lord, He said that signsand wonders should follow them that believe. Have they any signs andwonders up at your place? And He said that believers must forsake all, houses and lands and all; what have your people forsook? And as to itsbeing hard to believe about Joseph--you just take the things in theBible, Elisha and the bears, for instance, and Paul bringing back Dorcasto life, and just think how hard they'd be to believe if you heard theyhappened yesterday, next door to you. And with God all times and placesis the same. Souls is only saved by believing; the Lord says so, andaccepting the things of faith to come to pass, and being baptized andgiving up all and following; and it's an awful thing to lose one'ssoul. "

At this reiteration of the doctrine of the soul as a thing apart fromthe development of reason and character, Susannah rose, ready to crywith anger. Her aunt's agitation on the subject had left a sore to whichthe gentlest touch was pain. 

"I don't believe it, " she cried. "I don't believe God wants us to doanything except just good. That's what _my_ father told me. I'm goinghome. I don't care how it rains. "

Emma did not hear her. Over her pale young face had come the peculiarexpression of alert and loving listening. She had detected the sound ofa footstep which Susannah now heard coming heavily near. 

A large man of about twenty-five years of age entered from the blusterof the storm. As Susannah was trying to push out past him into its fury, he paused, staring in rough astonishment. 

Lucy hung on to her arm. "Stay a bit! Joseph must hold the umbrella overMiss. Emmar, tell her she can't no wise go alone. "

Susannah fled into the driving sheets of rain, but Joseph Smith, umbrella in hand, followed her. 

CHAPTER III. 

The umbrella was a very heavy one. Susannah certainly could not haveheld it against the wind. Joseph Smith held the shelter between Susannahand the blast, looking at her occasionally with a kindly expression inhis blue eyes, but merely to see how far it sheltered her. 

They walked in silence for about a quarter of a mile. The rain sweptupon her skirt and feet; she saw it falling thick on either side; shesaw it beating upon Smith's shoulder, upon one side of his hat, anddripping from his light hair. The wind was so strong that the very dropsthat trickled from his hair were blown backward. His blue coat wasold--not much protection, she thought, against the storm. 

The false prophet had hitherto appeared quite as terrible to herimagination and as far removed from real life as the wild beast of storybooks; now he appeared very much like any other man--rather more kind inhis actions, perhaps, and distrait in his thought. Susannah began tothink herself a discoverer. 

"You are not keeping the rain off yourself. "

"It don't matter about me. I don't mind getting wet. "

His tone carried conviction. After a while gratitude again stirred herinto speech. 

"I'm afraid you find it awfully hard holding up the umbrella. "

He gave a glance downward at her as she toiled by his side. "Why you'remost blown away as it is. You couldn't get along without the umbrellar. "Regarding her attentively for a minute, he added, "Emmar will be vexedwhen she hears that your dress got so splashed. "

They were both bending somewhat forward against the wind; the roadbeneath them was glistening with standing water. When they passed by thewoods the trees were creaking and cracking, and over the meadows hungshifting veils of clouds and rain. 

"I guess I'd better not take you farther than Sharon Peck's. Your folkswould be pretty mad if you walked through the village with Joe Smith. "

The lines round Susannah's mouth strengthened themselves; she feltherself superior to those whose attitude of mind he had thus described. 

"You have been very kind to come with me. I'd like better to go homethan stop, if it isn't too far. "

"I guess not. If you'd lived here longer you'd know that there was allmanner of evil said about me, and the worst of it is that some of it'strue. I've been a pretty low sort of fellow, and I hain't got anyeducation to speak of. "

She looked up at him in astonishment; the expression of his face waspeaceful and kindly. "Then why do you go about preaching and saying--"

"I hain't got nothing to do with that at all. If an angel comes fromheaven and gives me a partic'lar revelation, calling me by name, namely, 'Joseph Smith, Junior, ' tain't for me to say he's made a mistake andcome to the wrong man, though goodness knows I hev said it to the Lordoften enough; but now I've come to see that it's my business just to dowhat I'm told. But as to the low ways I hed--why, I've repented and givethem up, and as to the education, I'm trying to get that, but it won'tcome in a minute. "

Her conscience was not at rest; to be silent was like telling a lie, andfrom motives of fear, too! At length she burst out, "I don't believe youever saw an angel, Mr. Smith. I think it's very wicked of you to havemade it up, and about the gold Bible too. "

They were still half a mile from the nearest house. Susannah gasped. When she had spoken her defiance she realised that if she had nothingworse to fear, she at least deserved to be left alone among the ragingelements. She staggered somewhat, expecting a rebuff. 

"I guess you'd better take my arm, " he said. "It ain't no sort of a dayfor a woman to be out. "

When she hesitated, flushed and frightened, a smile came for the firsttime across his face. "You're almost beat back by the wind. It won'thurt you to grip hold of my sleeve, you know, even if I am a thunderingbig liar. I don't know as I can expect you to believe anything else. Emmar didn't for a long time, but then, after a spell, she gave up allthe comforts of her father's house just to stand by me, and no one'sever had a word to say against Emmar. "

They stopped at a farmhouse on the outskirts of the village. 

Smith had said to Susannah, "There's a gentleman I know stopping atSharon Peck's. I'll pass the umbrellar on to him, and he'll take youhome. He's been a Quaker, but I guess you'll find him a pretty niceyoung gentleman. Mrs. Peck, she isn't to home. "

He left Susannah standing upon the lee side of a wooden house amidtreeless fields. The eaves sheltered her. She stooped down and with bothhands wrung the water from her skirts. She was busy over this when thepromised escort joined her. 

The remnants of his forsaken Quakerism hung around him; his coat wasbuff, his hat straight in the brim, his manner prim, and when he spokeit was in the speech of his people. His complexion was very light, hair, eyebrows and lashes, and the down on his chin--almost flaxen; his facewas browned by exposure to the weather, but so well formed that Susannahfound him very good to look upon, the features pointed and delicate, butnot without strength. 

"Thou wilt walk as far as thy home with me?" he asked. 

He held Smith's huge umbrella, but he did not hold it with the samestrength, nor did he show the same skill in keeping it against the wind. 

He spoke as they walked. "Thou hast walked a long way. Art weary?"

"Yes--no--I don't know. " What did it matter whether she was tired ornot? Baffled curiosity was exciting her. "You are a stranger here. Areyou a friend of the Smiths?"

"I have experienced the great benefit of being acquainted with theprophet for the last fourteen days. "

"But he's not a prophet, " said Susannah resentfully. 

"Did'st thou never find thyself to be mistaken when thou wast most sure?Hast thou not perceived that thy Bible tells thee in many different waysthat God chooses not as men choose?"

Then with great ardour he preached to her the doctrine of this newChristian sect. He was a convert; his preaching was rather the eagerrecital of his own experience, which would out, like some dynamic forcewithin him, than pressure brought wilfully to bear upon her. 

He said, "I do not ask thee, friend, if thou art Methodist or Baptist orPresbyterian, but I do ask thee, canst thou read the promises of thyLord to his church and be content with its present low estate?"

Susannah was habituated to some recognition of her beauty; she missed ithere, not knowing what she missed. Smith had known that it was importantfor her to be sheltered from the wind; he was sorry that her skirts weresplashed; his manner, casual as it had been, had at least had in it thatelement of "because you are you, " the first essential of any humanrelationship. But Susannah liked the young Quaker much better thanSmith; he was of finer fibre, and her heart was agape for youngcompanionship; so, unconsciously, she resented his indifference, notonly as to her sect but as to her sex. 

"My father was an Englishman, " she replied with dignity, not knowing whythis seemed sufficient answer. 

The Quaker proceeded eagerly with his own story. He had searched theScriptures diligently, and found in them no warrant for believing thatthe age of miracles and direct revelations would ever pass from thechurch. Then upon the gloom of his deep despondency a star had arisen. He had heard of a young man, poor, obscure, illiterate, who had dared tocome forth saying again, as St. Peter had once said, "This is that whichwas spoken by the prophet Joel. " He had come far to hear the word, and, upon hearing it, he had found rest for himself and a hope for the world. 

His ardour was beginning to tell upon Susannah's mind. The desire awokewithin her for some fellowship with his enthusiasm. Stronger was thedesire to receive personal recognition from the fair-faced youth. 

"I am English, " she repeated, "and of course I think it very wicked toadd anything to the Bible; it says so in the Revelation. "

"That to me also was a stumbling-block for a short time; but if thouwilt consider, friend, that the Book of Mormon is the history of God'sdealing with the wild races of our own continent from the time of Noahuntil the time of Maroni, which would be about three hundred years afterthe first coming of the Lord, and that this sacred history, so necessaryfor the instruction of us who must now dwell in the same land, could notbe given until this continent was known to the world, thou wilt cease tocavil, and wilt in all humility believe that that which is done of thehand of the Lord cannot be wrong. "

Faith begging the question is a sight to which the eye of experiencebecomes accustomed, but Susannah, standing upon the threshold of life, blinked and failed to focus her vision, feeling vaguely that during thelast phrase some one had turned a somersault, and that too quickly to bewatched. 

"Thou wilt think upon these things?" The young Quaker stood in the stormand looked earnestly upon Susannah, who was upon her uncle's doorstep, within shelter of the brown pent house. 

Susannah smiled. It was a perfectly instinctive smile, not oneself-conscious thought went behind or before. She smiled because theyoung man was comely, and because she was young and wantedcompanionship. 

"I don't know, " she said with perfect frankness; "my aunt will be sovexed with me when she hears that I've been to the Smiths that I don'tbelieve I'll be allowed to think of anything this good while. "

Her smile, her girlishness, seemed at last to pierce beneath the armourof his devout abstraction. Fortune at work chooses her a fine-edgedinstrument, and Joseph Smith, with unerring but probably half consciousinstinct, had sent the right messenger. The cloud of serious intent onthe youth's face broke now into a sudden admiring glance, half playfulyet fully earnest. His gray eyes held for a moment gracious parley withhers. "Wilt thou, " he asked, still smiling, "give it as excuse in theday of judgment that they would not let thee think?"

"N-n-no. " She was more struck with the inadequacy of the excuse thanwith the fact that she had a better one if she had chosen to give it. 

He was again grave, but he was not now unappreciative. "Thou art veryfair, and beauty to a young woman is, no doubt, a great snare. I willwrestle in prayer for thee. "

He was going down the brick walk between the masses of drenched flowers. "Don't, " cried Susannah faintly, "don't do that. " But he did not hearher. 

CHAPTER IV. 

The wind that in the hurly-burly out of doors had been a cheerful ifboisterous enemy, seemed suddenly transformed into a wailing spirit whenSusannah was making her way up the stairs of the darkening wooden house. Its master and mistress had not yet returned from burying the dead. Thegirl made her way up to Ephraim's room. The books were left open uponthe table; no one was there. 

It was a new thing that Ephraim should breast a storm. 

Susannah trudged downstairs again and dried her bedraggled skirts at thefire--an empty house, a dreary wailing wind, and gathering twilight forher sole companions. 

At length a step was heard. Ephraim came in bearing Susannah's raincloak and goloshes. He was wet, pale, and breathless, but he would notbetray his weakness and excitement by a word. 

"You were looking for me, Ephraim, and some one told you that I had comehome. Did you hear who brought me? O Ephraim! I have been out walkingwith the false prophet, and then with one of his disciples. " Susannah, sitting by the fire, looked at him trying to smile through his gloom. 

She began again, then stopped; how to impart the full flavour of thatwhich had befallen her she did not know. It seemed to her that thedifficulty lay in Ephraim's silence. She was not aware that she had noteven a distinct thought for a certain interest in her late companionwhich she most wanted to put into words. "Ephraim, it's all very wellfor you to stand there drying your feet, but--but--they were just likeother people, as you told Mr. Finney, you know. "

"Did you expect them to have horns and tails?"

"I don't think they are very wicked, " said Susannah. She looked down asshe said it, speaking with a certain undefined tenderness of tonebegotten of a new experience. 

"Well?"

"That's all. "

"How could you know whether they are wicked or not?" he burst outangrily. "Do you suppose that they would show _you_ the iniquity oftheir hearts?"

"Why, Ephraim, you've always stood up for them before!"

He gave a sort of snort. "I never stood up for them by making eyes at myhands and cooing out my words. "

She looked up in entire bewilderment. 

"It doesn't matter what I mean, " he added. "What did they say? What didthey do? Tell me. If I'd known these fellows had come back, do yousuppose I'd have let you go?"

"You are so strange, " she said. "They did nothing but just bring me homeand hold the umbrella, and Joseph Smith said he knew he'd been a bad manand didn't know anything. I thought you'd be interested to hear aboutthem, Ephraim. "

"I should have thought you'd had too much self-respect to allow him totalk to you like that. Of course he was trying to work on yourfeelings. "

"No, he wasn't, Ephraim. You are quite as unjust as my aunt to-day. Hewasn't trying to work on my feelings. He was just--well, he was sorrythat my frock got so wet, and he just happened to say the other thing. Iam sure--"

Her conviction concerning the naturalness of Smith's conduct and theQuaker's sincerity had arisen in the presence of each, and was not nowto be ascribed to any particular word or action which she could rememberand repeat. 

"Oh, he was sorry your frock was splashed, was he? And the other fellowthey call Halsey, was he concerned about that too?"

"Who told you that his name was Halsey?" The interest of her tone wasunmistakable. 

"That is his name, and he must be a degraded fellow to take up withSmith. "

She saw that Ephraim's clothes were very wet; he must have walked far. She attributed his exhausted look entirely to fatigue, and hisill-temper to the same cause. "Mr. Halsey seemed quite good and inearnest, like the people that come to see Mr. Finney when he stays here, asking about saving their souls, as if their souls were something quitedifferent from the other part of them; and, Ephraim, I have often wantedto ask you, but I didn't like to. You don't believe what aunt and uncledo, do you? Aunt talks as if you didn't believe. Do you think"--hervoice trembled--"do you think that I ought to think about my soul--thatway?"

Ephraim never perceived the nature of her difficulty. He thought shequestioned the earnestness of life. He leaned back against the jamb ofthe chimney, vainly trying to dispel his anger and bring his mind underthe command of reason. He looked at Susannah steadily; she was somewhatpale with weariness and excitement; she could never be other thanbeautiful. How perfect was the moulding of the strong firm chin, of thecurving nostrils! The breadth of the cheek bone, the height and breadthof the brow, beautiful as they were in their pink and white tinting, conveyed to him almost more strongly the sense of mental completenessthan of outward beauty. He did not dare to look at her questioningeyes; his glance travelled over the amber ringlets, damp and tossedjust now, drooping as if to say "Susannah is lonely and perplexed, andshe needs your help. " Ephraim, proud, and mortified to think how ill hecompared with her, laughed fiercely within himself. This was a youngwoman of distinction, and just now she knew it so little that she satlooking up with respect at his ill-conditioned self. How long would thatlast? How long would she remember any word that he chanced to say toher?

"Susannah, I think you are very ignorant. Were you never taught anythingwhen you were a little girl?"

"My father and his friends were always polite to me. " She spoke withgrave, rather than offended, dignity. 

"She is entirely sweet, " he said to himself; "she will never answer mein anger. " Then he went on aloud, "And I am not polite; I am ill-trainedand ill-bred. Well, listen, Susannah. Whatever my mother may or may nottell you about my peculiar opinions, whatever _I_ choose to believe orto do, remember this, that I tell you that _you have_ a soul to beeternally lost or saved, and it behoves you to walk carefully andconcern yourself about your salvation. " There was a vibration of intensewarning in his voice. He was thinking of the life that might be so nobleif will and reason sided with God, and of the snares that the world laysfor beauty, and the light way in which beauty might walk into them;and, as with all dreamy minds, he was too absorbed in his thought toknow how little it shone through the veil in which he wrapped it. 

Susannah grew a shade paler. She had struggled in a blind child-fashionto maintain a religion that would embrace her manifold life, but now itappeared that, after all, Ephraim endorsed the general view; his refusalto comply openly with it came of wilfulness, not unbelief. Thestronghold of her peace was gone. "My papa never spoke to me aboutreligion in that way, but I don't think he believed that. "

Ephraim thought of the weak and reckless young father, of the carelesslife broken suddenly by death. 

"He has learned the truth now, " he said shortly. 

After a pause, in which she did not speak, he betook himself to his ownrooms, leaving Susannah to the companionship of the lonely house, thehowling wind, the gathering night, and a new fear of a state eternal andinfernal, into which she might so easily slip. Ephraim said so, and hewould never have proclaimed what he would not comply with unless itstruth were very sure. 

As for him, his self-despite was pain that rendered him oblivious of herreal danger. Where was his boasted justice? Gone before a breath ofjealousy. The neighbours had told him that she had smiled on Halsey, and the abuse of the Smithites, in which his mother indulged in theblindness of religious party-spirit, had fallen from his lips as soon ashis own passion had been touched. Had his former candour, then, been thething his mother called it, _indifference_ to, rather than reverence fortruth?

This was the travail of soul that Susannah could have as little thoughtof as he had of hers. It held Ephraim in its fangs for many days. 

CHAPTER V. 

The return of Smith and his few followers, and the speedy publication ofthe first edition of the Book of Mormon, stirred anew the flames ofreligious excitement. All other sects were at one in decrying "theMormons, " as they now began to be called by their enemies. There wasperhaps good reason for intelligent disapprobation, but Understandingwas left far behind the flying feet of Zeal, who, torch in hand, rushedfrom house to house. It was related that Joseph Smith was in the habitof wounding inoffensive sheep and leading them bleeding over theneighbouring hills under the pretext that treasure would be foundbeneath the spot where they would at last drop exhausted; and there weredark hints concerning benighted travellers who, staying all night at theSmiths' cabin, had seen awful apparitions and been glad to fly from theplace, leaving their property behind. There was a story of diabolicalinfluence which Smith had exercised in order to gain the young wife whomhe had stolen from her father's roof, and, worse than all, there weredescriptions of occult rites carried on in secret places, where themost bloody mysteries of the Mosaic priesthood were horribly travestiedby Smith and his friends, Cowdery and Rigdon, in order to dupe thesimple into belief in the new revelation. 

Ephraim Croom had again withdrawn himself out of hearing of thecontroversy. Judging that Susannah was sufficiently guarded by hisparents to be safe, he became almost oblivious of conversation which hedespised. He did not reflect that Susannah knew nothing of his hiddenconflict, that she could only perceive that, after uttering an ominouswarning, he had left her to work out its application alone. 

It was at first not at all her liking for the Smiths, but only herunbiassed common sense, which convinced her that the wild stories toldconcerning them were untrue. When she became enraged at their untruthshe became more kindly disposed toward the young mother, whose baby hadmade a strong appeal to her girlish heart, and the big kindly lout of aman who had sheltered her from the rain. This benevolent dispositionmight have slumbered unfruitful but for the memory of the fine andresolute face of the young disciple who had promised to wrestle inprayer for her. There was novelty in the thought. The gay witch Noveltyoften apes the form of Love. Susannah did not know Love, so she did notrecognise even the vestments falsely worn, but they attracted her allthe same. Her young blood boiled when her aunt, dimly discerning someunlooked-for obstinacy in her niece's mind, repeated each new report indisfavour of the Mormons. It was the old story about the blood of themartyrs, for ridicule and slander spill the pregnant blood of the soul;but they who believe themselves to be of the Church can seldom believethat any blood but their own will bear fruit. Every stab given to thereputation of the Smiths was an appeal to Susannah's sympathy for them. Mrs. Croom, with a sense of solemn responsibility, was at great costbringing all her influence to bear upon the young girl whom her sonloved. She drearily said to herself, after many days, that her influencewas weak, that it accomplished nothing. The strength of it pushedSusannah, who stood faltering at the parting of the ways, and theimpetus of that push was felt in her rapid and unsteady step for manyand many a year. 

One day, when the men were out cutting the maize, Susannah rode with heruncle to the most distant of his fields, and found herself on the hillcalled in Smith's revelation Cumorah. 

The sound of the men at work and the horses shaking their harness wasclose in her ears while she strayed over this bit of hilly woodland. Itis one of the low ridges that intersect the meadows on the banks of theCanandaigua, and here Smith professed to have found the golden book. Itwas because of this that Susannah had the curiosity to climb it now. 

The beech wood grew thick upon it; the afternoon sun struck its slantsunbeams across their boles. Once, where the beeches parted, she cameupon a fairy glade where two or three maples, fading early, had carpetedthe ground with a mosaic of gold and red, and were holding up theremainder of their foliage, pink and yellow, in the light. The beautywrought in her a dreamy receptive mood. Climbing higher, she came upon avery curious dip or hollow in the ground. In its narrowest part a manwas lying prostrate; his face was buried in his hat, which was lyingupon the ground between his hands; the whole expression of his body wasthat of attention concentrated upon something within the hat. When shecame close he moved with a convulsive start, and she saw that it wasJoseph Smith. 

His look changed into one of deference and satisfaction. He rose up, lifting his hat carefully; in it lay a curious stone composed of brightcrystals, in shape not unlike a child's foot. 

"It's my peepstone, " he said. "It's the stone I look into when I praythat I may be shown what to do. " Exactly as one child might show toanother some worthless object he deemed choice, he showed the stone toher. 

"I don't know what you mean. How could a stone help you?"

"All I know is that when I've been lying for a long time, feeling thatI'm a poor fellow and haven't got no sense anyway, and the tears come tomy eyes and gush out, feeling I'm so poor and mean, then when I lie andlook and look into this peepstone, I see things in it, pictures ofthings that is to be, and sometimes of things that are just happeningalongside of me that I didn't know any other way. I can't say how it maybe; I only know when I see it that I am 'accounted worthy. '"

"You couldn't see anything in the stone. "

"No more I couldn't. The stone's nothing, an' I'm nothing, and that'swhy, when I do see the pictures, I know it must be either God or thedevil that sends them; and it's not the devil, for I always work myselfup to a mighty lot of praying first, and why should the pictures comeafter that if it was the devil?"

"What do you see?"

"I'll tell you one thing I have seen. Mebbe you'll know what it means;mebbe you won't. I don't know myself rightly yet. I've often to study onthose things a long while before I know what they mean, but lately I'veseen you. "

"Me?"

"Yes, you, miss. The things I see are like small tiny pictures insidethe stone. Your bonnet was off. You were inside a room. There was tablesand chairs, and there was a man there. He wasn't very old; he had lighthair. "

"What had he to do with me?" she asked, astonished. 

"I just saw you stand there, and him a-sitting, but a voice in my ownheart seemed to say--"

"What?"

"It was one of my revelations. If I tell you, you won't believe it. Howsomever, I think it's my duty to tell you, although you may tell yourfolks, and they may persecute me. " He paused here, and when he beganagain it was in a different tone of voice and with a singing cadence. "The voice said, 'I say unto thee, she shall see the white stone, andshall be told the thing that she shall do for the salvation of her soul;and I say unto thee, Joseph Smith junior, that thou shalt say unto herto look upon the stone, for she is chosen to go through suffering andgrief for a little space, and after that to have great riches andhonour, and in the world to come life everlasting. '"

As he spoke he was holding up the stone, which glistened in thesunlight, before her eyes. 

Susannah stared at it to prove to herself that there was nothingremarkable about it. The feeling of opposition seemed to die of itself, and then she had a curious sensation of arousing herself with a startfrom a fixed posture and momentary oblivion. That afternoon as she wasgoing home, and in the following days, phrases and sentences from theprophecy which Joseph Smith had pronounced in regard to her clung to hermind. In disdain she tried to tell herself that the man was mad; inchildlike wonder she considered what might be the mystery of the visionwithin the stone and the prophecy if he were not mad. She had neverheard of crystal-gazing; the phrase "mental automatism" had not thenbeen invented by the psychologists; still less could she suspect thatshe herself might have come partially under the influence of hypnoticsuggestion. The large kindliness of the new prophet, the steady sobrietyand childlikeness of his demeanour, the absence of any appearance ofpolicy or premeditation, were not in harmony with fraud or madness. Hergentle intelligence was puzzled, as all the candid historians of thisman have since been puzzled. Then, tired of the puzzle, she fell againto contemplating scraps of his speech, which, having a Scriptural sound, suggested piety. "She shall be told the thing that she shall do for thesalvation of her soul, " "She is chosen to go through suffering and grieffor a little space. " How strange if, impossible as it might seem, thesewords had come to her--to her--direct from the mind of the Almighty!

CHAPTER VI. 

Some days after this Susannah sat alone at the window of the familyroom, the long white seam on which she was at work enveloping her knees. 

Far off on the horizon the cumulous clouds lay with level under-ridges, their upper outlines softly heaped in pearly lights and shades of dunand gray. Beneath them the hilly line of the forest was brokendistinctly against the cloud by the spikes of giant pines. That faroutline was blue, not the turquoise blue of the sky above the clouds, but the blue that we see on cabbage leaves, or such blue as themoonlight makes when it falls through a frosted pane--steel blue, sofull of light as to be luminous in itself. From this the nearer contourof the forest emerged, painted in green, with patches and streaks ofrusset; the nearer groves were beginning to change colour, and, vivid inthe sunlight, the fields were yellow. From the top of a low hill whichmet the sky came the white road winding over rise and hollow till itpassed the door. Who has not felt the invitation, silent, persistent, of a road that leads through a lonely land to the unseen beyond thehill?

Susannah was again alone in the house; this time Ephraim was absent withhis mother, and her uncle was at the mill. On the white road she saw aman approaching whose dress showed him to be Smith's Quaker convert, Angel Halsey, a name she had conned till it had become familiar. He didnot pass, but opened the gate of the small garden path and came upbetween the two borders of sweet-smelling box. In the garden Chinaasters, zenias, and prince's feather, dahlias, marigolds, andlove-lies-bleeding were falling over one another in luxuriant waste. Theyoung man neither looked to night nor to left. He scanned the houseeagerly, and his eyes found the window at which Susannah sat. He steppedacross the flowers and stood, his blonde face upturned, below the opensash. Under his light eyebrows his hazel eyes shone with a singularlybright and exalted expression. 

"Come, friend Susannah, " said he, "I have been sent to bring you towitness my baptism, " and with that he turned and walked slowly down thepath, as if waiting for her to follow. 

Susannah, filled with surprise, watched him as he made slowly for thegate, as if assured that she would come. When he got to it he set itopen, and, holding it, looked back. 

She dropped the long folds of muslin, and they fell upon the floorknee-deep about her; she stepped out of them and walked across the oldfamiliar living-room, with its long strips of worn rag-carpet, its oldpolished chairs, and smoky walls. The face of the eight-day clock staredhard at her with impassive yet kindly glance, but its voice onlysteadily recorded that the moments were passing one by one, like to allother moments. 

Susannah went out of the door. The sun drew forth aromatic scent fromthe borders of box, and her light skirt brushed the blossoms that leanedtoo far over. Outside the wicket gate at which the young man stood was ayoung quince tree laden with pale-green fruit. Susannah let her eyesrest upon it as she spoke: she even let her mind wander for a second tothink how soon the fruit would be gathered. 

"Why should I come to see your baptism?" she asked, with her voice onthe upward cadence. 

The young man blushed deeply. "I am come to thee with a message fromheaven. " He glanced upward to the great sky that was the colour ofturquoise, cloudless, serene. 

"It is a strange errand. " There was a touch of reproof in her voice, andyet also the vibration of awe-struck inquiry. Her mind rushed at once tothe memory of Joseph Smith's prophecy. 

"Come, friend, " said the young Quaker very gently. 

"I can't possibly go. "

His strange reply was, "With God all things are possible. "

The text fell upon her mind with force. 

"Come, " he said gently, and he motioned that he would shut the gatebehind her. 

"Not now; my shoes are not stout; I have no bonnet or shawl. "

"Put thy kerchief over thy head and come, friend Susannah, for 'no man, putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdomof heaven. '"

At this he walked on, and she was forced to follow for a few steps toask an explanation. She tied her kerchief over her head and the thickwhite dust covered her slender shoes. 

"What do you want me to come for?" she asked. 

He looked upon her, colouring again with the effort to express what wasto him sacred. "It has been given to me to pray for thy soul. To-day, asI prayed, it was borne in upon me that thou shouldst be with me in thewaters of baptism. "

Susannah paused on the road, planting the heels of her shoes deeply inthe dust. "I will not, " she cried. "I will never believe in JosephSmith. "

"And yet it has been revealed, friend, that thou art one of the elect. The time will come very soon when thou wilt believe to the salvation ofthy soul. "

He walked slowly onward, and after a minute Susannah, with quickenedsteps, followed him, in high anger now. "I do not believe in therevelations of Joseph Smith, " she cried. And because he did not appearoffended she spoke more rudely, catching at phrases to which she hadbecome accustomed. "If the salvation of my soul should depend upon it, Iwould rather lose it than believe. "

But when she had said these last words a little gasp came in her breath, and her heart quailed in realising the possibility of which she hadspoken. Her own angry words had diverted her attention from questioningthe reasonableness of the new faith to the fearful contemplation of whatmight be the result of rejection. 

If she quailed at her own speech, the grief of the young Quaker was moreobvious. He put up his hands as if in fear that she should add to hersin by repeating her words. Quiet as was his demeanour, the emotionalside of his nature had evidently been deeply wrought upon to-day, forwhen he tried to speak to reprove her, grief choked his utterance. Itwas not at that time a strange thing for men under the influence ofreligious convictions to weep easily. On the contrary, it was accountedby evangelists a sign of great grace; but Susannah, accustomed only tothe reserve of English gentlemen and her uncle's stern Puritanself-repression, seeing this young Quaker weep for her sake, was greatlytouched. She became possessed by an excited desire to console him. 

The young man turned, weeping as he went, into a little wood that herebordered the road. Susannah followed, full of ruth, thinking that hemerely sought temporary shade. 

They had proceeded under the trees a few paces when Emma Smith came upfrom the bank of the river to meet them. Halsey controlled himself andspoke to Emma. 

"She has refused. For this time she has rejected the truth. "

Now to Susannah the matter for amazement was that she had come so farfrom home (although, it was not very far), that she had actuallyarrived, as it seemed, at an appointed place. The sting that this gaveto her pride was greatly eased by perceiving that she had not by thisfulfilled his hopes. 

Emma Smith had a pale, patient face, which was at this time madepeculiarly dignified by a look of solemn excitement. Young as she was, she turned to Susannah with a protecting motherly air. 

"Perhaps next time the opportunity is offered the young lady willembrace it and save her soul. " She spoke consolingly to Halsey, butlooked at Susannah with encouraging and respectful eyes. "You will seethis young man baptized?" she asked. 

Under the protection of Emma Smith, Susannah stooped under the willowboughs and found herself upon the bank of the river in the presence ofJoseph Smith, his mother, and some half-dozen men. 

Lucy Smith was muttering somewhat concerning a vision of angels, and thesuppressed excitement of them all was manifest. Susannah was infected byit; she was now tremulous and eager to see what was to be seen. 

Joseph Smith advanced into the flowing river and stood in a pool wherethe water was well up to his thighs. Standing thus, he began to speak inthe same formal tone and with the same solemn expression that Susannahhad marked when he spoke the revelation concerning herself, but moreloudly. "Behold! we have gathered together according to the revelationwhich has been given to me--"

Here a dark young man called Oliver Cowdery groaned and said "Amen. " Atremble of excitement went through the group upon the shore. 

Loudly the prophet went on--"Knowing well that there is nothing in me, who was wicked and graceless to a very high degree, and wanting inknowledge, but was yet chosen, upon this sinful earth and in these lastdays, when wickedness and hypocrisy is abounding, to open to all whowould be saved a new church which is such as that which the angel hathrevealed to me a church should be, and all them which shall receive myword and shall be baptized of me or of Mr. Oliver Cowdery, whom theangel Maroni, descending in a cloud of light, has ordained with me tothe priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering ofangels and of the gospel of repentance and of baptism by immersion forthe remission of sins. And this shall never again be taken from theearth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord inthe new Jerusalem. "

The loud voice carried with it an impression of strong personal feeling;the effect on the bystanders was such as the words alone were whollyinadequate to produce. Cowdery, who during the speech had frequentlygroaned and responded, after the Methodist fashion, now shouted andclapped his hands towards the heavens, whereupon Lucy Smith fell into aconvulsive state between laughter and tears, and the men standing besideher dropped upon their knees. Emma Smith remained standing; upon herface was a rapt triumphant expression. She put her arm round Susannahprotectingly, and Susannah did not repulse the familiar action. 

Joseph Smith now in the same voice called upon his father to bebaptized. He addressed him formally as "Joseph Smith senior. " The oldman had, as it seemed, a great fear of the water. It took both priestsof the new sect together to lift and immerse him. There was moresplashing than was seemly. The baptism of a farmer named Martin Harris, which followed, was more decorous. 

The sunlight lay bright on the other side of the flowing river, and theshadow of the willow tops above them was outlined on the stream. On thesunny bank opposite there was a thicket of sumac trees reddening to theautumn heat; the wild vine was climbing upon them, making their foliagethe more dense, and at their roots, by the edge of the stream, thegolden rod was massed. On the bank on which they stood the colouring wasmore quiet. A few ragged spikes of the purple aster were all that grewunder the gray green willows, which with every breath turned the silverunderside of their soft foliage to the wind. The place for the baptismhad no doubt been chosen because of the depth of the water, and becausethe bank here was comparatively bare. 

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. The steady sound of themattock in a neighbouring field was the only token of the commonbustling world that lay close around the curious isolation of the hour. 

It was time that Angel Halsey should be baptized. In his Quaker clotheshe waded into the water. His manner now was entirely serene, his facefull of joy. 

A thought was struck wedge-like into Susannah's understanding. IfHalsey, who was so manifestly on a higher plane of education andrefinement than these others, could so triumphantly embrace the newfaith, it must surely contain more of virtue and reason than she couldsee. The influence of what he was, being so much greater than theinfluence of what he had said, caused her mind to work with solemnearnestness as she followed him in sympathy through the symbol of deathand resurrection. 

When the prophet came back to the shore he appeared for the first timeto recognise Susannah, and stopped before her, but at first with adistraught manner, as if he were trying to recollect some dream thateluded him. He still had his hand familiarly on Halsey's arm, for he hadbeen conducting him out of the water. 

"This is the elect sister?" Smith asked in a hesitating tone, as ifstill striving with memory. "Does she desire baptism?"

"Not yet, " answered Halsey, "but I have asked the Lord for her soul, andI believe that it has been given. "

In Halsey's mind up to this moment there was, no doubt, only thesolicitude of the missionary spirit; but Smith was a man whose mind wascast in a different mould; he had already marked the solicitude andgiven it his own interpretation, and he had already opened his own eyesupon her beauty. How far this had conscious connection with thecondition of actual trance into which he now fell cannot be known. It isprobable that what the Psalmist calls the "secret parts" are not insuch minds as Smith's open to the man's own eye. 

Smith became wrapped in a sudden ecstasy. Oblivious of all around him, he looked up into the heavens, and it was apparent that his eyes werenot beholding the material objects around. Those about him gazedawe-struck, waiting and listening, for he began to speak in a lowunknown tongue, as if holding converse with some one above. 

Susannah shrank back, but was held by Emma's encouraging arm. Halseystayed perforce, for the prophet's grasp had tightened convulsively uponhim. 

In a few moments the vision was over, and Joseph Smith opened his eyesand smiled in his own slow kindly way upon the frightened girl and uponAngel Halsey, who stood with steadfast mien. 

"It has been revealed to me in heaven that the soul of the elect sisteris indeed given to be united to the soul of this young disciple, thatthereby she may obtain salvation. "

He took Susannah's hand, and she felt no power to resist him; he claspedHalsey's almost more timid and reluctant hand over it. 

"Wherefore in the sight of God and in the sight of these elect saintsnow present I declare that these two are joined together in the mysticalunion of a most holy marriage which God himself has revealed fromheaven. "

For some moments Susannah gazed fascinated; then she snatched away herhand; dignity sought to maintain itself; pride rose up in anger. Hergrowing awe of the prophet numbed to a certain extent both thesesentiments, but stronger than pride and self-respect and awe was sometender shame within her heart which was hurt beyond enduring, so thatshe put her hands before her face and wept, and walked away from themweeping, followed by Emma, who began, as they walked, to weep insympathy. 

Tears bring relief to the brain, a relief it is hard to distinguish fromcomfort of soul. When Susannah could check her unaccustomed sobs, whenshe found herself walking quietly homeward with only the weeping Emma byher side, the spirit of long suffering and patience stole upon herunawares. 

"Why do you cry?" she asked gently. 

"I think it must be so hard for you, " said Emma; "it's been very hardfor me, although I love Joseph with all my heart; but you are sochildish and so good-looking, it seems someways as if it came harder onyou; and then that Mr. Halsey hasn't got the warmth of heart that Josephhas. "

To this astonishing reply Susannah found no answer. Emma was toorespectable, too honest in her sympathy, to be derided, but Susannah'sunderstanding could ill endure the thought that the incident of the hourwas important. As the outcome of honest delusion, she might forgive it;something in the pathos of Halsey's strained face as she remembered hislook when she turned away weeping, urged her to forgiveness. 

"Mr. Halsey is nothing to me, " said Susannah at last; she spoke with afalter in her voice, for Emma's unfeigned grief touched her. 

"Oh! don't say that. Some judgment might come on you that would be worsethan any suffering that would come from obedience to the word of theLord; and besides, it's the will of God, you see; and of course He'llsee that it's done, so you'd be punished for rebellion, and you'd haveto obey all the same. "

Susannah was beginning to be infected by this steady assumption that Godhad indeed spoken. Could it be possible?

CHAPTER VII. 

How much better humanity might have been had we been at the world'smaking we cannot tell, but as it is, the Creator knows that a womanwhose veins are pulsing with youth does not know, as she stands betweenher lovers, how far influences not born of reason are affecting herunderstanding. Ephraim remained neglectful, and Susannah remembered withmore and more distinct compassion Halsey's wistful face and the touch ofhis trembling hand. But the emotion which is deeper than human love wasalso in ferment. The shock which she had received, aided by the pressureat home, had effectually worked religious unrest. She was certain nowthat she must do some new thing to obtain peace with God. Longmonotonous days ripened within her this altered mind. 

On one of the warm days that fell at the end of the apple harvest, whensuch vagrant labourers as had collected to help the farmers wereloitering at liberty, Smith held his first and last public meeting inthe place where his boyhood had been passed. It was near the cross-roadson the old highroad to Palmyra, where a small wooden bridge carriesover a creek that runs through the meadow to the Canandaigua. Here inthe leisure time of the afternoon Smith lifted up his voice and preachedto an ever-increasing crowd, composed first of men, and added to bywhole families from most of those houses within touch of the village. 

The elder Croom, his wife, and Susannah were returning from the weeklyshopping at Palmyra's store; they came upon the crowd, and stoppedperforce. Wrath was upon the faces of the elder couple, and nothing lessthan terror upon Susannah's white cheeks. 

Susannah would have run far to have been saved the awful interrogationof opportunity. Perhaps all that she knew just then, in her childlikebewilderment, was that the slanders of the persecution were wrong, andher untrained mind jumped to the conclusion that the God of truth musttherefore be with Smith. Beyond this there was unnamed wonder at theunexplained influence that Smith held over her, and more curiousthoughts, stretching out like the delicate tendrils of an unsupportedvine, concerning Halsey, his prayers and warnings, and the strength ofselfless devotion that she had read in his innocent eyes. 

Old Croom, deacon and magistrate, was not one to tarry at such agathering longer than need be. When he perceived that some of the planksof the bridge had been taken to support the dam he alighted and brokedown a log fence in order to drive his horses through meadow and streamto join the road nearer home. His women must needs walk over the scantybeams. Mrs. Croom, stately and well attired, could make her way throughthe crowd; no one there was so rapt but that he let her pass when, witheyes flashing in righteous indignation, she tapped him on the shoulderand bid him stand aside. Susannah followed in her aunt's wake, the crowdof neighbours and strange labourers closing behind them again as theyworked their way, of necessity slowly, nearer and nearer the preacherand the little band of adherents that stood steadfast around him. 

Susannah heard the words of the sermon in which open confession of hisown past sin, bold persuasions to Christianity and righteousness, werestrangely mingled with the claim of the new prophet. She could notremember one moment what he had said the last. Low hisses and mutteredthreats of the angry men about her fell on her ears in the same way, making their own impression, but not on reason or memory. A sickeningdread of a call that would come before she got away was all that shefully realised. It came when, in her white gala dress, she stood stillat last near to, and under the eye of, the preacher. 

The sermon was finished. There was a silence at its end so unexpectedthat none in the crowd broke it. It seemed for those moments to reachnot only into the hearts of the crowd, but into the wide, empty vault ofsunny blue above them, and over the open fields and golden woods. Then, before the wrath of the crowd had gathered strength to break intoviolence, Smith went down into the water and called loudly to all suchas felt the need of saving their souls to enter upon the heavenlypilgrimage by the gate of his baptism. His adherents had cast themselvesupon their knees in prayer. Susannah saw the strong, dark face of OliverCowdery looking up to the sky as though he saw the heavens opened, andshe saw Angel Halsey look at herself, and then, clasping his hands overhis fair young face, bow himself in supplication. 

A man, ragged in dress, and bearing the look of ill deeds in his face, made his way out of the crowd into the water. He was a stranger to theplace, and the spectators looked on in silent surprise. Before Smith haddipped him in the stream and blessed him another man came forward, paleand thin, with a hectic flush upon his cheeks. He was a well-knownresident of Manchester; all knew that his days on earth must be few. Alow howl began to rise, loudest on the outskirts of the crowd, but thefact that the man was dying kept many silent, feeling that the doomedmay surely have their own will. 

Before Joseph Smith had spoken his benediction over this trembling, gasping creature, when Halsey had left his kneeling to spring forwardand lead him to the shore, Susannah began to move forward to the water. No one who saw her move at first dreamed of what she sought. Her aunthad pushed on some distance farther and stood waiting, almost tooastonished at this last baptism to notice that she was separated fromher charge. Now, when she saw Susannah pushing forward, she onlywondered with others what she would be at, and spoke to herineffectually, without the shriek and struggle which she made when thegirl was beyond her reach. 

So Susannah, moving like one in an agonised dream, came to the edge ofthe pool. Among the praying band there was no doubt as to her intention, no astonishment; the kneeling men gave instant thanks to God for herdecision, and Halsey, having helped the feeble man to land, led Susannahdown into the water, his face illuminated by the victory of faith. 

Susannah heard now her aunt's wild shrieks; she heard too the surging ofthe crowd, but the meaning of neither sound came to her. She waded on towhere Smith stood, with only the dazed sense of a goal to be reached. She was perfectly passive in his hands as he dipped her beneath thesurface and raised her up, but she listened to the blessing hepronounced with a sudden leap of the heart, feeling that now at last themisery of fear was past and the demand of God satisfied--it must be sobecause it had cost so much. 

When she came to herself she saw that the crowd, like a wild beast, hadsprung downward upon the disciples. Even in her first terrified glanceshe was impressed by the strange and awful difference between thedistorted and hideous faces of the mob and the exalted calm of the fewmen who had at this time fixed their minds on the unseen rather than theseen. She looked up to Smith in the swift appeal of terror, and feltonce for all the huge courage by which his life was marked. His hand, helping her to the shore, never trembled. He calmly directed her stepsinto the quiet meadow before he gave himself to the battle. 

When her person was no longer there to be protected, the Mormons gaveway at once before the gathering strength of the mob. She saw thembeaten down mercilessly; she saw Smith himself beaten and thrownprostrate in the water. The still, warm air that a few minutes beforehad seemed instinct with prayer was now vibrating to the howls andtaunts and curses of the mob. Susannah had no doubt that these, who werenow her friends, were being killed; their sufferings justified her toherself and produced a fierce exaltation in the step which she hadtaken. In her experience of life she thought that the mob would turnupon her next, and stood waiting, every muscle tense, her handsclenched, feeling excitedly that she would rather die than live to seesuch intolerable wrong. 

This tension of nerve relaxed somewhat when her uncle lifted herforcibly into the waggon. With eyes wide open with horror and lipstrembling, she asked, "Did they kill them, uncle?"

"No, child, they only gave them a good trouncing in their own pond. " Hechoked here, out of pity for her, keeping back the torrent of his anger. 

Even at this early date it was bruited that Joseph Smith exercised someunseemly force of will by which he distorted the reason of his converts. This report explained the fact that for the first day after the shock ofSusannah's baptism her aunt and uncle did not lay the blame of it at herdoor, did not argue or persuade, only watched her as one recovering froma strange disease. But in the afternoon of that first day the pent-upfever of the aunt's wrath against those whom she thought to blame brokeforth, and almost in delirium. 

The last hot weather of the autumn still held; in the same still hour ofthe afternoon, the hour in which Susannah's baptism had taken place theday before, Angel Halsey, pallid with his yesterday's beating andill-usage, but steadfast and even joyful of face, walked up to the frontdoor of the magistrate's house. 

This door opened upon an unfrequented entrance-hall. Susannah heard theknock, heard her aunt move with the dignity befitting an expectedvisitor. Then she heard Ephraim's step on the stair for the first timethat day, and reflected dully that he must have seen the advent of someimportant person from his window to be thus answering the call of thedoor. 

After that she heard words that had the sound of suppressed screams inthem. She realised that the house mistress was ordering some enemy fromher door. These commands were not obeyed, and Susannah, hearing that theintruder remained, began in fear to suspect the meaning of theintrusion. As she rose the report of a fire-arm startled her from allthe remnants of her selfish dulness, causing her feet to fly. 

From within the sitting-room she saw the entrance-hall. Its door wasopen to the wide sweep of land that lay in floods of sunshine. In thelight, half turning now to go as he had come, stood Angel Halsey. Hereager eyes drank in the sight of him, because last night she had thoughtto see him die. She saw his quietness even while, it seemed to her, thegun still echoed, and it was Ephraim who held the gun! Beside Ephraimher aunt stood, like one in a frenzy, her very garments twitching andher gray hair fallen loose. None of them looked to see the girl withinthe shaded room. 

"Friends, " said Halsey, "I came to say 'Peace be with this house, ' andto speak with her to whom God has given the spirit of obedience to histruth, but it is written that when any house refuses to receive us wemust depart. "

His voice was for some cause growing fainter, but Susannah was certainthat the cause was not fear. 

He took a letter from his breast. "I wrote it, " he said, "in case Imight not enter to speak with her. "

He gave the letter to Ephraim, who took it reluctantly, as one impelledby some strong sense of right. 

Halsey went out. He tottered upon the path, but he opened the gate andwalked on. Ephraim, still holding the gun and the letter, turned and sawSusannah. 

Ephraim's face was gaunt and haggard as she had never seen it before;his eyes were large, and she thought she read unutterable distress inthem, but could not understand. She held out her hand for the letter, but as he gave it both she and he perceived for the first time that itwas stained with blood; they felt mutually the thrill that the sightgave. 

He put his hand out suddenly and pushed her within the room. "Go, " heentreated, "for God's sake, Susy, go to your own room; take his letterwith you if you will, but go. "

Susannah went amazed, but she began to think that Ephraim's distress hadnot been a gracious sorrow, but remorse for his own crime. He must haveshot Halsey as he would have shot at some evil beast. When she had timeto remember that Halsey had tottered when he walked, she fled back, straining the blood-stained letter to her breast, and tore open theclosed door. Her aunt was sitting in a low chair sobbing. Ephraim, bareheaded in the sunshine, was standing on the path shading his eyes toscan the road. Susannah ran out, not to him (her shame and grief for himwere too deep for any word), but with intent to run after the woundedman and nurse his wound. 

"It can be but a slight flesh wound, " said Ephraim mechanically. 

She looked first where he was gazing, and saw that some distance downthe road Halsey was stepping into a chaise. Another man took the seatbeside him and they drove away. 

Then she looked at Ephraim. He did not appear as though he felt hisguilt; he had the mien rather of one who was striving bravely to endurehardship. Then indeed she felt that the gulf of thought must yawn widebetween them; she could even yet have pitied Ephraim's contrition, buthe was not contrite. In indignation she retired, sitting in the privacyof her little bedroom. 

It was a strange letter, not alone because the ink was blurred by bloodthat, still warm, soaked it through in parts, but because, coming froma young man to a maid, in the first flush of her strength and beauty, itoffered love and marriage, giving only as his reason, urging only as hermotive, the service of God. 

"If, " the letter read, "thou canst see thy way, dear friend, to holdfast that thou hast in the house of thy friends, if thou canst see thyway, by steadfast confession and by the grace of thy demeanour, tostrive among them for their conversion, it would be well while thou artstill so young to remain with them for a time--at least so I think. Butour prophet thinks, and I also greatly desire to think, that the strainupon thy faith would be too great, that thou mightst fail; andremembering that it has been revealed to him that our union has beensealed in heaven, he thinks that thou wouldst do well to commit thytender life now to my keeping. "

The phrase "and I greatly desire to think" was almost as strong as anyin a long letter to tell which way his delight would lie, and Susannah'swas not a mind upon which this indication of reserve force was thrownaway. She trusted, vaguely in thought but implicitly in heart, to thatwhich lay behind--something which did not alarm her, which in her innervision wore no warm nor obtrusive colouring, but which she knew to beintense and of enduring quality. And she saw herself alone, beaten byadverse winds and without other shelter. 

Halsey touched upon the fact that Smith and his disciples (he did notsay himself) had suffered greatly from yesterday's ill-usage, and saidthat, having given their message to the people, they were that dayleaving for a place called Fayette, in Seneca county, where it hadpreviously been determined that the new church should be organised. Hehimself would wait either until Susannah saw her way to come with him, or until he knew that she was at peace, having chosen of her own accordto remain. He would bring a chaise, in which she could travel if shewould, near her uncle's house at dawn upon the next morning. He wouldtake her, he said, to the house where the Smiths were in Fayette, but itwas implied through all the letter that the mystic marriage which Smithhad solemnised was considered by Halsey as valid, and that if she joinedher material fortunes now to those of the persecuted sect, it would beas his wife. 

In speaking of the future he did not gloss over the persecution; he didnot even promise, as Smith had done, a sure and material reward. Themind of the young Quaker convert was fixed upon the things that areunseen. This was not hidden from the girl. The thought of being with himin his faith and resignation gave her peace. Poverty and persecutionseemed as nothing compared with the torture of being surrounded bypeople whose thought and actions aroused in her young heart whirlwindsof passionate opposition. Even Ephraim, instead of rising in hisstrength to condemn the outrage of yesterday, had attempted to-day towound or kill. Her amazement and dismay at this drove her out as it werewith a scourge. 

Halsey had told her to pray, and she had tried to pray. Halsey had toldher to search the Scriptures for guidance, and she read. Text after textcame home to her heart, bidding her leave her kindred to share thefortunes of the persecuted children of faith. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

At break of day Halsey was waiting upon the road with a fairly goodhorse and a comfortable chaise. Susannah never forgot the light thatcame to his eyes when he saw her approach; it was like dawn in paradise. 

Angel Halsey was not without shrewd worldly wisdom. He turned into across corduroy road that led through the woods, passing only some smallclearings to the west of Palmyra, and thus by a detour avoiding thatvillage, he returned again to the highroad between Canandaigua andGeneva. The pursuers, upon failing to hear that the chaise had passedthrough Palmyra, might turn back, or if they had gone on they might haveoutstripped them on the road, and be in front rather than behind. Thisdanger peopled the long lonely road with possible enemies both beforeand behind. The strain upon the imagination was very great. The road washeavy and rough. 

Susannah perceived that Halsey's apprehension of being overtaken wasalmost solely on her account. He was so upborne by his religiousenthusiasm as to be oblivious to the pain which his wound of yesterdaygave him, and was perfectly willing to encounter the violence of herkindred again if need be, yet, seeing her terror with a quickness ofsympathy which roused her gratitude, he took every possible precautionthat could allay her fears. All through the weary, weary day she hardlyspoke to him, never addressed him by name. 

They reached the new town of Geneva at sundown. When they had set forthagain, it was a great comfort to Susannah that grayness had succeeded tosunshine. She was weary of the yellow light, of the dull glare from thestubble fields, of the obtrusive colours of the autumn foliage, of theblueness of the sky, of everything, indeed, that she had seen and heardduring the wretched hours of the day. They now travelled through a veryflat tract; little of the land was cleared; the road was straight. It ishard to explain the mental weariness produced by a straight level road. The hope and interest inspired by undulations or curves are lost. Thedistance ever gives a farther reach of the weary way to the view, as ifby a parable it would impress on the traveller the knowledge that thefuture was to be barren of delight. 

About two miles from Geneva, before the daylight was quite gone, theywere both startled by hearing a rushing, crashing sound coming towardthem in the woods. Were their pursuers upon them after all? Had theychosen this, the most lonely part of their road, to fall upon them?

They did not speak their thoughts to one another. Angel struck thehorse, and it galloped forward perhaps about a hundred yards, and then, of its own accord, stopped suddenly. 

Upon the side of the road, pushing itself backward among the bushes, thebetter to gain space for its run, was a bull. Its eyes were bloodshot, its head lowered for a long moment to measure its distance ere it madethe attack. The horse seemed palsied with terror. It moved backward withtottering steps, trembling all over, heedless of whip or rein. 

The backward movement prolonged the hesitation of the bull, which turneditself to take another aim. The horse uttered an almost human cry. Inthe moment of hearing that cry Susannah felt that she had already gonethrough some shocking form of death. Halsey brought down his whip, striking the horse with all his might; it leaped forward, lifting thechaise almost into the air; then it was rushing madly on, dragging thewheels behind it with terrible velocity. 

They had caught sight of the rush of the bull. They felt the animal'sheavy side just graze the back of the chaise, and they heard behind thema bellow of rage that seemed to fill all the solitary place withdiabolical echoes. 

The body of the chaise was bounding upon its leather bands, joltingcruelly against the axle. Susannah cried out that she should be thrownfrom her seat. The swift-falling darkness encompassed their path. Theirhope lay in the straightness of the road, and their chief fear was thatby some greater roughness of the way the chaise, which was now swayingfearfully, might be overturned. 

Gradually the sound of the bull's galloping became less distinct. Thechaise was still upright. The horse, beginning to falter in his pace, took more kindly to the accustomed control of the rein. It was thenSusannah found that she had been clinging to Halsey for support, andthat he, by bracing himself with one arm to the side of the chaise andholding her with the other, had prevented her from being thrown out. 

In gathering her shawl about her she wrapped herself again in a certainamount of her former reserve, but the excitement that she had beenthrough made her former silence impossible. 

Halsey at first received her remarks in silence, then as he essayed toanswer, his voice grew low and faint, and a sudden suspicion of thecause pierced through her mind. 

In another moment he sank, leaning against her. Putting her hand beneathhis coat, she found to her dismay that the strain of holding her hadopened his wound; his clothes were again wet with blood. 

The reins slipped from his hands. Susannah tied them loose to the frontof the chaise and, putting her arms round the fainting man, drew thebandages tightly but with unskilful hands; she lessened the bleeding andcaused him such acute pain that he lifted his head and spoke. 

"What shall I do?" she asked piteously. The blood, diverted from thebrain, had left it without healthy circulation, but she did not know yetthat this was affecting his mind. 

"Friend, " he whispered, "that was in truth no bull; it was the devilhimself. "

"The devil?" she asked faintly. 

"He almost succeeded in his cruel attempt to cause us to be discouragedfrom the way. "

"It seems to me he only succeeded in causing us to take the way withgreater vehemence, " she replied in some scorn. 

In the next minute she heard him whisper eagerly, "Look up; look betweenthe branches; quick! Do you not see the face looking at us?"

The branches of the overhanging tree were black with night. She lookedup in the direction that his feeble hand indicated, and withindescribable terror scanned the blank spaces in which no human facecould possibly be. 

"Look!" he whispered again impatiently. "Don't you see it? It is theface of a man. A white face! It is the face of thy cousin as I saw ityesterday when I was counted worthy to suffer. Look! look! does thounot see him?"

His words had the effect of producing in her that maddening fear of thedark which ghostly tales induce, and now he fainted again. She wasafraid to cry for help, afraid even of the rustle of her own garments. She did not know how far she was from any house. And it seemed to herthat this lover, who was almost a stranger, was dying in her arms. Themisery of this hour governed her action in the next. 

Halsey in the bottom of the chaise lay with his head against her knee, and soon, holding the bandages of his wound close upon it with one hand, she took the reins with the other and urged the horse forward. She hadhad no thought all that day but to go, as Halsey had said, to EmmaSmith's protection. She hoped now that there was but one road; that whenshe came to the first settlement she would be with the Smiths. This wasnot the case. She travelled an hour, obliged to pass more than onecross-road because she dared not turn down it. At length she foundherself in front of a large house with lighted windows, which wasevidently an inn. 

The door opened, letting out a stream of candlelight. A man stood in thedoorway. "What place is this?" cried Susannah's voice from the darkness. 

"It's John Biery's hotel. "

"Will you have the kindness to tell me if you know of any one calledMr. Joseph Smith?"

There was some talking within. "No, we never heard of Mr. Joseph Smith. "

"Or Mr. Oliver Cowdery?" Again there was talking. 

"No, it don't seem that we've any of us heard o' those names before. Beyou alone?" The deep bass voice of John Biery was becoming moreinsistent in its rising inflection. 

For some half-minute Susannah did not answer, and then fear of beingcompelled to retake the road made irresolution impossible. 

"Indeed, sir, I am not alone. I have in the chaise with me a sick man, and I fear that he may be dying. I thought to find friends, but it seemsin the darkness I have missed my way. I must beg of you to assist me tolift him into the house and give us shelter for the night. "

The men had remained perfectly still, drinking in her every syllablewith that fierce thirst for news which is a first passion of dwellers insuch desolate places; then, aroused by what they heard, they cameforward across a rough bit of ground to the road. The burly form of JohnBiery came first, and he called for a lantern, which was instantlyproduced by one of those who followed. They held it up over Angel'scrouching form and death-like face. Then they held it higher and staredat Susannah. Her shawl had fallen from off her shoulders. Thehandkerchief upon her neck was loose, and underneath the pink border ofher bonnet the ringlets had begun to stray. Her resolute face, so youngand beautiful, startled them almost as an apparition might have done. 

"I'm dead beat, " said the hotel-keeper under his breath, "if I ever seedanything like that!" But with the ready suspicion of a prudenthouseholder he questioned her. Where had the man come by the wound? Forthey saw the blood-stained bandages she clasped. 

Yesterday, she explained, he had received a slight bullet-wound byaccident, and to-day, in their long travel, the loss of blood haddisabled him. 

"Does he belong to you, young lady?"

Susannah busied herself with the bandages for a moment, but terror hadcarried her far. She replied with gentle decision, "He is my husband. "

CHAPTER IX. 

"It is our fault. "

That evening Ephraim Croom stood in his father's sitting-room, near thedoor of the dark stair that led up to his own rooms. His shoulders weredrooping. His face was gray and haggard. Even his hair and beard, damp, unkempt, seemed to express remorse in their outline. He stood doggedlyfacing his father and mother, repeating the thing that he saw to betrue, but with no further words to interpret his insight. 

To his parents his opinions, his attitude, appeared as an outrage uponreason. His father looked at him with greater severity than he had everbefore exercised upon his only child. "I reckon, Ephraim, that you speakwithout using the sense that the Almighty has been mercifully pleased togive you. You know, Ephraim, the girl has been as a daughter in thishouse. When has it been said to her that her father, dying in hisworldly follies, left her destitute, the pittance she gets needing to gofor his debts? She's had about as good a home as any girl should want, and your mother and the ministers have dealt faithfully with herconcerning her soul. "

Ephraim made a movement of the head as if for a moment he could havestood upright, feeling in one respect innocent; then again there wasnothing but the droop of shame visible. 

His mother looked at him with eyes that were red with weeping. She hadbeen wiping them with fierce furtive rubs of her handkerchief; now shewas rubbing the handkerchief, a hard ball, in the palm of one hand. Perhaps grief at Susannah's loss had been dominant until Ephraim'saccusation had fanned her anger. "She'd better have gone with him openlyfrom the baptising. I never thought then that it was love-making she wasafter. " Deep scorn was here expressed. "Religion! 'Twasn't much religionshe had in her mind. And we treated her real kindly, Ephraim, thinking'twas the hold of delusion they had upon her. 'Twould be very small useto bring her back even if you or your father could have found out whichway they'd gone. 'Tisn't likely she'd stay long if you fetched her, seeing she's that sort of a girl, with a hankering for the man. Thereisn't a place in this house to lock her into unless it is the cellar. "

It was perhaps the thought of the unspeakable degradation it would be tothe worthy house to hold a girl as prisoner in the cellar, perhaps thedismal knowledge that that which had already befallen them and her wasnot much better than this, that caused his mother here to lose herself-control entirely and weep bitterly. Ephraim shrank under her wordsas if they had been the strokes of a whip striking him. When she hadended he went on heavily up the dark stair. 

Both the men were in riding-dress. The elder man, when he had comfortedhis wife as best he might, laid aside his boots and whip determinedly, believing that the use for them, as far as concerned the search for hisniece, was at an end. Upstairs, sitting between the three windows thatlooked east and north and south, Ephraim sat as long as exhaustion maderest necessary. He was still equipped for the road, thinking only whichway it behoved him to travel, and when. 

CHAPTER X. 

The next day, toward afternoon, Joseph Smith stood by the bedside ofAngel Halsey. Susannah, wan and weary with a long night's nursing, wassitting beside the pillow. Smith looked upon them both benevolently. Itwas some minutes before he spoke. Susannah was too much in awe of him tosay much, but his presence was welcome. Since Halsey's rational self hadbeen lost in his delirium, loneliness like darkness that could be felthad pressed upon her. 

"Our brother will be healed, " said Smith at length. "It is given to meto know that he will be healed. " He then spread his hands over the sickman and made a short prayer. There was much fervour in his words and hisvoice was loud. 

"Give him to drink, " said Smith. 

"Biery's wife told me as long as he was in fever not to give him water. "

Smith looked down upon her kindly, but he spoke in a tone of absoluteauthority. "My sister, I say unto thee give him water. It is given to meto know that he must have water and that he will do well. "

"It is never done in such cases, " said Susannah. "I remember when myfather--" She had not the faith that Smith required of her. 

Without a frown, with perfect gentleness, Smith fetched the water and, lifting the sick man's head, allowed him to drink eagerly. Halsey wasobviously comforted. 

Smith had something else to say. If he had not been who he was Susannahmight have perceived that he was somewhat perplexed, even embarrassed. Just as a child does not easily attribute to the adult such hinderingemotions, so she supposed him to be upon a plane above them. 

He lingered by the bedside, apparently watching the sufferer. At lengthhe said, "You set out with this young man--yesterday morning?"

"Yes, very early. "

There was another pause, then he said, "Did you go before a justice ofthe peace?"

"A justice of the peace?" Then she added inconsequently, "My uncle is ajustice of the peace. " She had never heard of a civil marriage; she didnot know in the least what he meant. 

"Or--or a minister?"

She began to understand now. 

"I married you myself, sister, and it was sealed in heaven, but Ihaven't got a license to marry, so that the Gentiles would say--that theknot wasn't tied, ye know. " The last words were a lapse into commonparlance. She had grown accustomed to the hybrid nature of hismannerism. 

He had expected and feared to see her white face flame into excitement, but to Susannah it seemed a small thing now what the Gentiles might say. If the marriage was indeed sealed in heaven, then all was well. And ifit was not, worse could not be. She was too weary now to respond to theprophet's worldly solicitude for her. Looking at the still unconsciousHalsey, she felt that there was time enough for further action. 

Smith said, "Emma would have come, but the child has spasms. "

"We meant to go to you, " said Susannah. "We lost our way. I only heardto-day where you were. "

After a while he said, "I might stop here with our sick brother and sendyou to Emma, but there is a congregation called for to-night. Mr. Cowdery would have come, but he was at the baptising. "

"Did you leave the baptising just to come and see us?" It occurred toher that from his point of view two stray disciples such as herself andHalsey could be of little importance compared with his appearance at thesolemn function. 

Smith busied himself giving Halsey more water. That done, he went awaywithout further words. Susannah heard his horse gallop from the door. She knew that he had travelled some five miles to pay this visit, andshe supposed that he desired to return if possible before the convertshad come up from the water. His visit had undoubtedly brought hercomfort. His response to her message had been prompt and kind. She knewnow that his thoughts and Emma's were busy concerning her. And then, too, the sick man was better. He had gone quietly to sleep. 

The woman of the house brought her for food an unusual delicacy. Smithhad ordered this. Mrs. Biery made some remarks concerning him. She saidthat his coat seemed very old, but that he had given her money and bidher attend diligently upon the sick man and his wife. Susannah, who knewhow little money the Smiths had hitherto possessed, how many things theymust want for themselves, was touched. 

As her spirits revived, her faith and hope in the new sect revived also. She looked among the few possessions Halsey had brought with him for theprecious copy of the Book of Mormon, and sat reading it by Angel'sbedside while the autumn sun was sinking. 

Sometimes she heard a traveller stop at the inn door and pass on again. At dusk there was a sounds of horses coming with speed. To her surpriseJoseph Smith came into the room again. He looked as if he had beenriding hard, but he spoke as quietly as though he had gone only fromthat room to the next. 

"I have brought a gentleman who can marry you according to the law ofthe State. " Susannah had gone forward to greet him, but now she lookedsuddenly back toward the unconscious man, whose form was almostindistinguishable in the dusk. 

Smith brought candles and set them at the foot of the bed. He tookHalsey by the hand and lifted him to a sitting posture, telling him inclear strong tones what was required of him. Halsey understood. Hebecame completely conscious under Smith's influence, and for the houralmost strong. He would know where he was and how he came there, who theminister was that had come. He even required that this stranger shouldshow his license to marry. 

The minister was a common-looking man, small, shaggy as to the beard, business-like. He knew nothing of Joseph Smith's prophetical claims, andcared only to know that Susannah was over eighteen years of age. Marriage was a thing easily accomplished in that day and region. A fewminutes more and Susannah was a wife. 

In after years, when she used to think of Angel Halsey as having gonebefore her into the unseen, Susannah held the belief that the part ofhim which she would meet there would be that which shone out in the rarehalf-playful smiles he gave, in the glance which, at the moment ofsmiling, he bent on her. He was a very grave man, shrewd, in many ways, in others as simple as a child, but above all greatly religious. Hisreligion, however deep might be its root, was also always upon thesurface. Only now and then, when, as at their first meeting, herecognised in his serious way that something else was required if hewould truly hold communion with Susannah, the smile would come as fromsome inward part of his spirit, like a dawning light slowly breakingthrough the surface, soon withdrawn again by the power of custom. Whenhe thus smiled, Susannah in those days trusted him absolutely, avowedherself entirely to his service, and felt within her heart a largemeasure of affection. 

Halsey's was the first case of illness in the newly-formed sect thatcalled itself already "_The_ Church of Christ. " Joseph Smith and Cowderyand a man named Whitmer, with whom the Smiths were now housed, havingconsulted upon it, decided that they must begin at once to carry out thecommands of Scripture. They came together, therefore, and anointedHalsey with oil, laying their hands upon him and praying fervently. Halsey, believing himself to be healed, got up from his sick-bed, andhis recovery progressed rapidly. 

Full of excitement, fervour, superstition, and faith, the apostles ofthe new doctrine were fully persuaded that they might expect a literalfulfilment of the promise that signs and wonders should follow them thatbelieve. The fierce opposition and hatred which were roused by thereports of their doings are easily accounted for when we consider thattheir opinions had to encounter that curious distortion of reason whichhas caused religious warfare in all times and places to become the worstsort of warfare, and the fact which Smith himself had acknowledged whenhe first saw Susannah, that many evil reports about him had formerlybeen true; then also the new sect produced vehement psychicaldisturbance wherever it touched the surrounding population, and manythings occurred which might, or might not, be termed miracles, accordingto the interpretation of the observer. It was no longer possible forJoseph Smith to ride, as he had done on the day of Susannah's marriage, with a minister of one of the older sects. He became very notorious, andto every one except those who were interested enough in his doctrine togive him a fair hearing, his name became a synonym for all evil. 

Halsey remained with Susannah at John Biery's hotel. Halsey was one ofthe few converts who could afford to live in comparative comfort and topay something for the entertainment of destitute disciples. For thatreason the landlord, John Biery, held himself from the religious quarrelthat was shaking the region. 

Even before Halsey had regained his strength he drove Susannah to swellthe congregation at the preachings which were daily taking place indifferent places within the township, for such converts as had alreadyprofessed themselves were gathered now in the neighbourhood of Fayette. 

Experiences came to Susannah in such quick succession that this was nota time of reflection. Such part of her husband's religion as she couldappropriate she endeavoured very sincerely to embrace. After the mannerof the thought, of the time she supposed that the sect was either rightor wrong--if right, all right; if wrong, all wrong. Sometimes theghastly fear that her growing belief was false would arise with hideousmenace. 

CHAPTER XI. 

All the doings of the infant sect were directed by those utterances ofJoseph Smith which he held to be revelations. These were confidedsometimes to the elders, sometimes to the converts at large. Susannahfrequently heard of them first through Emma Smith, whose pious heart wasconstantly filled with wonder and thankfulness at the thought of thegreat honour vouchsafed to her husband. These revelations, sometimesillimitable in their sweep, and sometimes having reference only to themost minute practical details, were at this time all in accordanceeither with the dictates of common sense or with the severely literalmeaning of some Scripture text. They were therefore easily justifiedeither to reason or to the eye of faith, but the results of theirapplication were often startling, and it was facts, not theories, thatchiefly caused Susannah to stagger. 

At length the growing excitement among the congregation seemed to gathertoward some climax. It was then that Joseph Smith was said for the firsttime to cast out devils. 

Near to John Biery's hotel lived a family of the name of Knight. Theworthy farmer became a convert, and so also, in appearance, did his son. Susannah first saw them at their baptism, which took place one coldbleak day in the margin of Seneca Lake. The horses which had brought thelittle company to the edge of the water, having been tied among thetrees, made a constant rustling and trampling among the fallen leaves. The sharp rustle, the thud of the hoofs upon the ground, were soundslong connected in her mind with the crisis of her doubt, which thenbegan. The maples stood above them, tall and leafless; the waters of thelake were leaden in hue and cold. Looking southward on either side ofits long flood, the snores with their many points and headlands laycold, almost hueless, near by, and in the distance blue as tarnishedsteel. 

It was a bitter day for baptist and for the immersed. Joseph Smith wentout alone into the water, commanding the other elders to remain upon theshore. Whatever else the man had or had not, he had splendid courage infacing physical ills. There were but few candidates. Susannah, standingapart near the shore, chanced to be in the path by which the youngerKnight descended to the water. He was a young man with strong featuresand a thick, unhealthy skin. He was dressed in the wet garments whichanother candidate had taken off. Cold he might have been, but as hepassed she heard his teeth chatter so loudly that it almost seemed toher that his very bones rattled. She drew back with the impression thatsome horrible thing had passed by. Before she had time to wonder thatthe chill should have had such an effect upon the hardy fellow, his feetwere in the water, and he turned and caught her eye. The look he gaveher became suddenly one of terrified entreaty. 

Susannah did not move; she was spell-bound. He began to wade towardSmith, who stood in the deeper water. She wondered why he allowedhimself to be immersed. She was certain that he did not desire it, wascertain also that no motives of interest, no physical force, could haveoperated to compel, when suddenly she asked herself sharply, what forcehad taken her into the waters of this extraordinary baptism?

To her astonishment, when Newell Knight came up from the water he wasshouting aloud. She thought that his accents were a horrible simulationof merriment, but by the others they were accepted as an evidence ofholy joy. 

Two days after, when Susannah and her husband were returning fromSmith's preaching through the autumn night, they were met as they wereapproaching Biery's hotel by a messenger from Knight's house. Themessenger had been sent to fetch Halsey. He reported that Newell Knightwas in "an awful way. " Susannah alighted at once and walked to thetavern, in order that her husband might drive with all speed to theafflicted man. 

The lights as they shone from John Biery's windows reminded her vividlyof the first time, a month since, when she had driven to that house atnight. She had grown much older since then, stronger in many ways, weaker in some, but she was not conscious of this; it was not her way togive even so much as a passing glance at herself as one of the actors inlife's drama. The road on which she trod was heavy with mud. Thenight-winds cried around and through the empty branches of two or threeneglected trees in the clearing. The square wooden tavern stood at thecross-roads. The light from the door made a pathway through thedarkness, up which Susannah walked. 

When she entered, the heat and fumes from fire, candles, tobacco-pipes, and steaming mugs met her. She was accustomed to walking through JohnBiery's main room to gain the stair that led to her own; on the whole itwas not disorderly, or Susannah had but to appear on the threshold toreduce it to order. To-night the men did not let her pass with theirusual civil "Good evening"; they assumed that she had an interest intheir talk. 

"Is Mr. Halsey stopping over to Farmer Knight's?" asked Biery. "My! andthey'll be real glad to get him, ye know. Twiced they've been here furhim. They say that Newell Knight he's possessed with a devil. "

Susannah wrapped her shawl tightly across her breast, a nervous movementcaused not by cold but by the desire to withdraw her real self from thesurrounding circumstance. 

A tall thin man sitting by the table set down his mug with a clatterupon it. "Wall now, tain't my idea thet thet's exectly what's takenNewell. I saw a case of a man thet was taken under the preacher Finney. 'Twas over to Ithica. The hull town knew about it. A lot of folks wentin. I jest looked in when I was passing, and seen the man meself. He waslyin' on the floor. His wife was aholdin' his head, but he didn't knowher. He hedn't no knowledge of any of the folks. He jest lay thererollin', and his eyes was rollin'. And when Finney was fetched, Finneyhe said 'twas 'conviction. ' I don't know what the man was convicted of, but 'twas 'conviction' Finney called it. He didn't say nothing aboutbeing possessed with devils. "

The third speaker was a small fat man. His face was smooth and had thepeculiar boylike appearance that chubbiness gives even to themiddle-aged; he had bright black eyes, and before he spoke he glanced atSusannah critically. 

"When they're taken that way under Finney, " he said, as if meditating, "'conviction' commonly means conviction of sins--their own sins, yeknow, not other folk's; and when they git up, if they've taken anythingwrongfully they hev to restore it fourfold afore the conviction willleave off a-worrittin' them. I don't know how 'tis among the Mormons. "The last words were said in an undertone and he had dropped his eyes. Itwould have required a brave man to treat Susannah to open sarcasm. 

She stood looking from one to the other. She still wore her girlishcottage bonnet, and as its fashion was, it had slipped backwards uponthe amber ringlets that hung upon her neck; but the girlish look wasfast passing from the face, the hair parting fell on either side of palecheeks. 

"Oh, as to thet, 's fur as I know, one religion's as good as another, "said the politic Biery. 

Susannah looked at the fat, bright-eyed man who was no longer looking ather. "I know" (her voice fell with a strange gentleness through thethickened atmosphere of the room) "that there are many malicious storiesabroad about the dishonesty of our people which are not true. "

But as she went up the stair she remembered that she had heard of nocase where reformation of character had been followed by the returningof the fourfold. Most of these saints of the new sect had before theirconversion been, like her husband, already God-fearing and righteous, but in cases where, like their leader, they had been reclaimed fromevil courses, had they not been satisfied with offering the present andfuture to God, leaving the past? She had heard of no case of restitutionsuch as Finney insisted upon. 

Susannah entered the low, wide room in which she lived. The chimney fromthe lower room passed up and was always warm. She went and laid her coldhands against the rough plaster that covered its bricks, and, beingtired, she leaned, laying her cheek too against its warm surface. Theone candle cast but a faint light upon the chairs, the bed, the table. The small panes of the window-glass were bare to the darkness withoutand the empty tree-branches. The heavy latch of the closed door wasfastened crookedly for lack of good workmanship. 

Her unsatisfied mind ached for counsel, and her thought, roving over theworld, could fix only on Ephraim as she had at first learned to knowhim, wise and quiet and kind. The warm chimney seemed a poor thing tolean her head against while she felt that her faith was failing. Thenthe remembrance of the shot Ephraim had fired and his callousness chokedback her tears. 

She waited an hour, two hours; then, becoming anxious on Halsey'saccount, she borrowed a lantern and went across the fields to Knight'sfarmhouse. 

Quite a number of people had gathered. Susannah met some of them comingfrom the house, but others were still there, standing about the fire inthe kitchen. She heard that the later arrivals had all been disappointedof the sight of Newell Knight in his fit. Halsey had assumed authority, stating that it was indeed a case of possession, and that none but thosewho were strong in faith and in the power of prayer must come near thepossessed. The craving of the visitors for excitement was only fed bythe sound of the young man's voice, heard at short intervals. 

He cried aloud, sometimes shrieking that he was being taken into "thepit" and that Joseph Smith could alone deliver him, sometimes exclaimingin a strange voice that he was no longer Newell Knight but a demon, andsometimes only moaning and gibbering words that no one could understand. 

Halsey came out to Susannah. "Wouldst thou see him?" he asked tenderly. "The sight will distress thee, for it is truly terrible to see with theeye of flesh the power of hell, and yet I cannot forbid thee if thouwouldst come, for perchance the Lord may mean it for our edification. "

Susannah went with him into the inner room, hardly knowing why she went, but probably impelled by the instinctive desire to relieve sufferingwhich was part of her womanhood. The young man's father and mother, together with two or three Mormon converts, were kneeling upon thefloor, saying prayers for the sufferer in more or less audible, more orless agonised tones. 

The young man lay upon a pallet-bed, in what would have been called bythe medical science of the time "convulsions. " His eyeballs were rolledupwards in a manner most disfiguring to his face. His hands wereclenched. Halsey no sooner entered the room than he, too, fell upon hisknees, lifting his face upward as if in silent and fervent prayer. 

For a moment Susannah felt impelled to follow his example. "Butperhaps, " she thought to herself, "cold water upon the patient's head, or a warm foot-bath--" Such suggestions caused her to resist the impulseto join the praying band, and, having resisted it, she suddenlyexperienced, as one feels a fresh breeze entering a close room, astrong, clear sense of knowledge that in this matter, at least, herhusband was deluded, that the friends had better rise from their kneesand betake themselves to ruder remedies. 

Susannah had never learned to command; she had never even learned toadvise. She had too much reverence to speak aloud, disturbing those whowere at prayer. She stood hesitating, and then, in very low tones, whispered her belief in her husband's ear. 

No doubt Halsey was shocked at his wife's unbelief; perhaps by the lawof telepathy, for whose existence some psychical experts vouch, histhought penetrated the mind of the sensitive upon the bed. Whatever thecause, Newell Knight sat up and pointed at Susannah, crying aloud thathe saw the devil about to seize upon her. So excited was the mentalatmosphere, so vivid were the sufferer's words and the effect of hispointing finger, or, perhaps, so substantial was his vision, that morethan one of the saints afterwards averred that they had seen the EvilOne about to embrace Susannah. But they did not agree in the descriptionof his form. 

Halsey wrapped his arms about his wife, and led her like a child fromthe room and from the house. She hardly had time to speak before she sawthe night again about her. He set her down upon an old log that chancedto lie against Knight's barn, kneeling beside her. There, when they werealone in the darkness, he invoked that name to which throughout allChristendom the devils are believed to be subject. 

"Angel, " she said gently, "stop praying and listen to me. If you cancommand the devil in the name of our Lord, why don't you do that to poorNewell Knight?" She felt strong sympathy for the young man; she wasmoved almost to tears to think they were taking the wrong way with him. 

"I have tried and failed. We have sent for Joseph Smith. My faith is notstrong enough, " he added humbly. "This cometh not forth but by prayerand by fasting. Look! I am even now unfaithful to my charge because Ilove thee, friend, more, I fear, than the work of the Lord. "

They were left alone because Halsey in passing out had left the door ofthe sick room open to the eager neighbours. Now reluctantly he went backto his task of guarding the patient, and Susannah, after assuring hisanxious soul that she felt no ill effects whatever from the direproximity, went home again across the dark frozen fields with herlantern. She sat half the night watching and waiting. 

It was in the darkest hour before the dawn that she heard Halsey's stepand crept down through the black house to unlock the door for him. Whenthey had come again into the room she saw that he was greatly excited, filled with apparent calm of an exalted mood. 

"We have beheld a most glorious victory, friend; and truly we have beenshown signs and wonders, and a very great miracle has been wrought. Iwish thou couldst have seen with thine own eyes, and yet--"

She thought that he had been going to say that her lack of faith hadmade it more expedient for her to be away, but that he had checked inhimself even the thought that he was more worthy of privilege than she. 

It seemed that Joseph Smith, having been preaching the evening before ata place some twenty miles away, had not been able to reach Knight'shouse until nearly two in the morning. 

"He rode all night, " said Halsey, "and lost not a moment in coming tothe inner room; it was like him. "

"Yes, " said Susannah, "it was like him; he is very kind. "

Halsey went on. "He spread his hands over Newell and commanded thedevils to come out of him. "

"And did they come?"

"They left him. Joseph said that it was given to him to see that therewere three of them; but they departed, going out into the darkness. "

The wind moaned against the window near which Susannah sat. 

"They left Newell very weak, but at peace like an infant sleeping. Butat first I feared that he was as one dead, for I could not see himbreathe; but Joseph's faith was strong, for he lifted up his voice andbegan to give praise, and he took Newell by the hand and bade him rise, but his hand fell back as if there was no life in it. Then Joseph Smithknelt with us upon the floor, and Newell lay smiling, but his eyes wereclosed, and he seemed dead to this world, although the body was warm. Afterwards he told us that at the time he was seeing a vision ofunspeakable light and glory. And then, as we watched him, I fearingbecause my faith was weak, a marvel happened as a sign and seal to ourfaith that Joseph is indeed called to be a great prophet. I wish thatthou couldst have seen it, Susannah, for the miracle has given me agreat uplifting in spirit, but I am come to bear witness to it, thatthou, too, mayest rejoice in the marvel. "

There was a few moments' pause. "What was it?" she asked. 

"Newell began to rise from the bed. He did not sit up or move himself, but he was raised slowly into the air, still reclining as though uponhis pillow. The invisible hands of angels bore him upwards. "

Susannah knit her brows. "Did you see the angels? I don't understand. "And then more vehemently she asked, "What was it that you did see?"

"Nay, friend, it was not vouchsafed to us to see the blessed spirits, but surely they must have lifted him, for he rose, soaring upwards, asthou hast seen the thistledown ascend gently, almost as high as the roofof the room. As we gazed in great astonishment, and the women faintedfor fear, he sank again as slowly till he rested upon his bed, and heopened his eyes and spoke to us of the wonderful vision of light whichhe had seen, and then he arose in perfect health and walked. "

Susannah sat silent for a minute or two. Her husband was also silent, wrapped in contemplation. Then Susannah said, "You are very tired, Angel. You were overwrought last night, even before you were called tothe Knights'; you had better go to sleep now. "

She darkened the window against the coming of the dawn that her husbandmight sleep in the day instead of the night. She herself went downstairswith the earliest stir of footsteps. Because of a whim that seized her, she helped to prepare the breakfast that was to be served to thehousehold at sunrise, and then she partook of it heartily, looking outof a southern window as she ate, watching the red sun ascend behind thenaked boles of the elms. She was glad that the new day had come. Herheart ached not so much with pure grief now as with mocking laughter. Her husband was mad, quite mad, or else--and this was the more bitterbelief--he had seen that she was in danger of disaffection, and had toldthis lie to dupe her, thinking that because she was a woman she would beimpressed by it. As the sincerity of Angel's look came before her shesaid to herself that if that were the case no doubt Joseph Smith hadinvented the story, and laid it upon Angel's conscience to tell it. Thator madness was the only explanation. 

CHAPTER XII. 

It was long after the day of her departure before Ephraim again set outto find Susannah. An illness to which he was subject first came uponhim, and then, when days were past and he was able to leave his bed, conflicting reports concerning Susannah had been brought to the house, and Ephraim's courage failed. Why should he go if by seeing her he couldneither give her pleasure nor do her good? It was natural that report, dwelling on what it could understand rather than on what wasincomprehensible, should magnify Susannah's love for Halsey. No man inNew Manchester who in the past month had chanced to catch sight of anymaid holding secret parlance with any lover but now swore stoutly thatthat maid had been Susannah. 

It often happens that schemes least calculated to succeed attainsuccess. Susannah and Halsey had not gone far, nor had they gone withgreat secrecy, yet it had happened that no one had observed them as theytravelled, and as there was at that time of the year littlecommunication between the towns to the east and west of Geneva Market, it was long before real news concerning them transpired. 

At length, when many days had passed, it was told in Manchester whereSusannah really was; and as if the mischief Rumour was ashamed of beingcaught telling the truth, she hastily added a lie, and one that had afair show of evidence in its favour. She declared that Susannah had notbeen married except by some mystical Mormon ceremony which was void inlaw. 

When Ephraim heard this circumstantial story, and with it many new talesconcerning wicked mysteries practised by the Mormons in Fayette, hethrew down his books, as long ago the fabled fruit that had turned toashes was thrown down, and prepared for the road. 

In the first day's journey he reached Geneva, and setting out againbefore it was light, he came to John Biery's hotel when the sun wasrising red beyond the gray elm boughs on the morning on which Susannahbreakfasted alone. 

Susannah looked up from her breakfast and saw Ephraim standing besideher. It was his way to look calm outwardly, but she could see that hewas struggling with the nervous untoward beating of his heart, so thathe could not speak. Susannah did not understand why she could notimmediately rise and speak. She was conscious of a red flush that roseand mantled her face, but she did not understand the emotion from whichit arose. She only knew that she was glad to see Ephraim, more glad thanshe could have thought to be of anything upon a day when her heart hadbeen set mocking. 

"You have come at last, " she whispered, and only knew when the wordswere said that she had hoped to see him before. Her whisper was brokenby rising tears, which she checked in very shame. 

"I want to speak to you, " said Ephraim briefly. 

So she rose and went out with him. She put her shawl over her head andwalked upon the roadside. The day was mild, the first of the Indiansummer. Ephraim had not put up his horse; he led it by the bridle as hewalked. 

"Sure as I'm alive, it's her uncle as has come after her at last, " saidthe wife of John Biery, gazing through the small panes of the kitchenwindow. And, in truth, Ephraim did look many years older than Susannah, for his figure was bowed somewhat for lack of strength. 

Susannah did not now think of Ephraim as old, neither did she think ofhim as young. To her he was just Ephraim, bearing no more relation ofcomparison to any other mortal than if his had been the only soul in theworld beside her own. She was not aware of this; she was only thinkingthat if he had not shot Halsey she would have been able to speak freelyto him now. It was so wicked of Ephraim, above all others, to do such athing. It was, in fact, unforgivable because of the stain upon Ephraim'sown character more than because of Halsey's blood. But that again shedid not analyse. She only knew that her feeling kept her silent. 

"I am here, Susannah"--in his battle to speak Ephraim economisedwords--"to ask you to come back with me. "

Susannah considered. It would be perhaps the best thing that she coulddo after she had spoken her mind to Angel. He would not ask her toremain to join in a service she loathed. But when she thought of heraunt, and of the voice of an outraged Puritan neighbourhood, her heartnaturally failed her. 

"I cannot. "

"Is this man more to you--I do not say than the ties of kindred, forthat is natural--but more to you than the obligation to live a life ofreason and duty?"

"No. " Susannah spoke the answer aloud because it arose so simply andstrongly within her. Had she not just come to a crisis in which herdesire to abide by reason proved far stronger than the feeling whichbound her to Halsey? And yet, as she thought of his love and histenderness for her, she felt only pity for him, even if he had told alie. 

Ephraim had grown calmer, but at the clear denial his heart again beatagainst the breath he was trying to draw. She did not love Halsey then!she was not married to him! He could conceive of nothing that could havebrought that word and tone to Susannah's lips if she were bound. 

"Does not duty and reason, does not even mere sanity, call upon you tocome back with me, Susannah, and spend your life where you can exercisethe gifts God has given you among those who abide by law and order?"

"Perhaps, Ephraim, it is so; but I am too great a coward. Think of theshame that I should have to endure from my aunt, and all the world wouldtaunt me with my folly and madness. I think it would kill what littlegood there is in me. For although I should be willing to suffer if Ihave done wrong, yet there would be no use in going where my punishmentwould be greater than I could bear. "

He was shocked to think of the days that had elapsed before he had cometo her. She had suffered much before she could speak in this way, andwhen he saw how mild and sad she was, and, above all, rational, helonged to comfort her as he would comfort a child with caresses and thepromise of future joys. He could give her neither, because he believedthat she cared for neither caress nor joy from his hand. There wassomething he could offer--all that he had to give that she could take, but the offer was so hard to make that he prefaced it. 

"A way might be found by which you could return to our house, Susannah, and be troubled by no spoken reproach, and you could live down thatwhich was unspoken. " He paused a minute, and then said, "But I wouldknow first that you leave all that pertains to your life here freely. You have found it true, what is so much reported, that the Mormonsfollow wicked practices?"

"No, oh no, Ephraim; that is not true--mad, deluded perhaps, but notwicked. The stories of wickedness told are malicious even where there isa colour of truth, and for the most part there is none. In the matter ofdaily life they abide by the laws of God and man, and nothing else istaught. "

It was the thought of the sacerdotal deception that she felt had been solately practised upon herself that caused her to put in the reservingwords "in the matter of daily life"; but when she remembered the malicethat had instigated report, the unlovely lives of the maliciousfault-finders, the evil stains that lie even upon the best lives, sheburst out, "There is not one in our community, Ephraim, who would stoopto a cruel act either in word or deed. There is not one of us, evenamong those who have recently repented from very wicked lives, who wouldtry to take the life of a defenceless man when he was, at a great costto himself, pursuing what he thought to be the path of duty--as you did, Ephraim. "

Before this he had kept his eyes upon the ground; standing still now, helooked straight into hers. So for a minute they stood, the horse's headdrooping beside his shoulder, the woman upon the roadside erect, passionate; around them the leafless wood through which the longstraight road was cut. The long level red beams of the sun struckthrough between the gray trunks, burnishing the wet carpet of the fallenleaf. 

"Did you think it was I who fired?" he asked. 

Then he went on with the horse, and she at the side. 

She was utterly astonished. "Who, Ephraim--who fired?"

He looked straight in front of him again. "It was my mother. Shebrandished the gun in his face. She couldn't have intended to shoot. "

From Susannah's heart a great cloud was lifted. She felt no confusedneed to readjust her thoughts; rather it was that in a moment herapprehension of Ephraim's character slipped easily from some abnormalstrain into normal pleasure. 

She pressed her hands to her breast as if fondling some delight. "Forgive me, " she said, "but I am so glad, oh, so very glad. " She drew along breath as if inhaling not the autumn but the new sweetness ofspring. 

So they went on a little way, he somewhat shy because of her emotion, she meditating again, and this question pressed. 

"And you think, " she asked, "that your mother would receive me if I wentback with you? that I could live at peace with her?"

"Do you think that whatever I might do she would ever try to shoot_me_?" he asked with half a smile. "Do you think that she would ever, byword or deed, do anything that would hurt _me_?"

"Never. " Susannah said the word as a matter of course. 

"Or that my father would ever deny me anything that I seriously askedfor, or that he knew my happiness depended upon?"

"No, surely not; but, Ephraim--"

"Oh, " he continued, growing distress in his voice, "Susannah, is thereany place else in the whole world that you can go for shelter andcomfort but to our house? You have spoken of this madness and delusion;you are satisfied that you must leave--" He had meant to say "this man, "but he was too shy, and he faltered--"that you must leave these people?"

She cast her eyes far in among the trunks of the close-growing trees, upon one side and then upon another, as if looking for a way of escape. Yes, surely her faith in Angel's creed had been hurt beyond recovery, and she must free herself, but how? She dallied with Ephraim's offer ofasylum because she could think of no other. 

"Yes, " she said mechanically; "yes, but how can I?"

"Oh, my dear cousin, don't you see that it is wrong for you to stay oneday longer here? If you believed at first that the bond that united youto this man was binding, you do not believe it now. You were so youngwhen you went, yet the thing cannot be undone on that account. You wereso beautiful that I had hoped a great and prosperous life lay beforeyou. Now, of course, that cannot be, but--but--at least you can live alife of peace, live truly and nobly, using your faculties to glorifyGod. "

She began to see that he was trying to work up to something else that hehad to say. She followed him heedfully, knowing that with Ephraim thesteps in an argument were important. He saw some way out which she didnot see, and her whole mind paused in eager listening. 

He turned and faced her again, lifting his eyes, holding out his hand;his voice, usually weak, was strong. She knew that it was a strong manwho spoke to her. 

"Susannah, will you take my name and protection?"

She gazed at him incredulous, and then, beginning to understand what itwas that he thought, and all that he meant, she leaned against one ofthe cold gray tree trunks, weeping weakly like a child. 

"But I am married, " the words came with a long sobbing sigh. 

"Not legally?" and then he added, "nor in God's sight. "

"Yes, yes, oh! you are making a great mistake, Ephraim. Joseph Smith andmy husband are not like that. A minister came and did it. He had hislicense, and we have the paper he signed. "

Ephraim set his teeth hard together and kept silence. He said to himselfthat he might have known that the rascals would be clever enough to makethe tie secure. 

Susannah wept on, not loudly, but with long convulsive sighs that brokeinto the tears she was endeavouring to check. 

"And, Ephraim, my husband is good--oh, very good, and very kind to me, and up to last night I thought that what he believed might be true. Iwas not sure, but I thought that Joseph Smith might be a prophet. I knewthey were far, far better than the other people who despise them, and soI was glad to be with them; and up till last night" (she repeated thewords, controlling herself to give them emphasis)--"up till last night Ithought that they at least believed everything they said to be true. "

Then, after an interval of unthinking pain, Ephraim perceived that if hehad come under a mistaken belief, he had at least come at the rightmoment; if the bond of her marriage held, the bond of her delusion wasbroken; she had detected some fraud. His hope, dazed by one blow, nowbegan to look through the circumstance more clearly. If he could leadher to renounce the religion in which she had apparently ceased tobelieve, and persuade her to return to his father's roof, the Mormonhusband himself might seek the dissolution of the marriage. ThereforeEphraim made no comment on what had passed, but asked gently, "What oflast night, Susy?"

With a great effort she stood up, brushing away her tears, brushing backwith both hands the hair that had fallen about her face. In the shockwhich Ephraim's proposal had given, in the brief interval of her tears, she had realised as never before that she could not shake off her dutyto Angel as she had thought to shake off his creed. She spoketremblingly. 

"Ephraim, you are so good that you are above us all. You live in somehigher place. You would have made this great sacrifice to help me. " (Shenever doubted that Ephraim's proposal had been born in self-abnegation. )"Surely you can tell me what to do, for I am in great distress; but Iwant you first to remember that my husband is good, and that he loves memore than all the world, more than everything except God, and if he hastold me a lie now, it must have been because he thought to save my soulby it, but I think--I think that the lie could not have been his. Ithink it must have been Joseph Smith's. " She spoke very wistfully. 

"What was it?" he asked again, tender of the shock she had received, yetstill confident that it would be his part to widen this breach. 

Looking down with burning cheeks, she told him what Halsey's story aboutNewell Knight's levitation had been. She remembered it quite clearly andtold it baldly. 

Before she finished it she heard him mutter below his breath that it wasvery strange. She was surprised at his tone of perplexity. 

"It is very strange to me, " she cried, "because I know my husband, andup till now he has been so upright and, except that he believed inJoseph Smith, so sensible and wise. "

"And is this all?" asked Ephraim. "If it were not for this, would you becontent to go on as before?"

He had begun to walk slowly on with the horse, and she too walked. Aftershe had answered him the long silence became oppressive, and she knewthat Ephraim was suffering to a degree that she could not understand. Atlength when he did speak his words were most unexpected. 

He was looking toward the rising sun, which was still dim and flushedwith the autumn haze. "The Christ whom we all worship, " he beganabruptly, "each in our different way, called himself by the sacred nameof Truth. Does he desire, do you think, that we must worship him byadhering to what we know to be fact, no matter what would seem to begained by slighting facts? It is a great temptation to me to concealfrom you, Susannah, a part of my book knowledge which I cannot helpthinking has some bearing upon this case--how much or how little I donot know. "

He walked on for a little way, and at length, with a great sigh, hebegan to speak again, answering her first appeal for advice. 

"I think that your prophet is mad or false, that his Mormonism is utterfolly, but you knew that I thought that long ago. As to this story yourhusband has told you, I am bound to say that it has happened before inthe world's history many times that men have seen, or thought they saw, a man rise into the air. In my opinion it is not the indication of asound mind when men see such things, and I feel sure that such aphenomenon, fact or delusion, whatever it may be, cannot bear anyrelation to the religious life. My advice to you is--ah, Susannah, I cansay it truly in the sight of God and of my own conscience--my advice toyou is to be quit of such men and such scenes, but I dare not keep backfrom you the truth that this one story, so far from lessening myconfidence in your husband's probity or in Smith's, has rather increasedit; for, being very ignorant men, they could not have heard of thesestories that I have told you, for I have read them only in rare books;that they have reproduced the same incident seems rather to prove thatthey have by accident stumbled upon the same fact--whether a dizzinessof the eyes, or an affection of the brain, or an actual counteraction ofgravity, I cannot tell. "

She listened, drinking in each slow word. After all, then, to-day wasjust like yesterday, and that which she had to decide was as to thereasonableness of the whole new doctrine, as to her willingness to liveamong such scenes and such men. 

There had been no sudden madness or deceit to give her reason for suddenrevolt (perhaps her heart said excuse instead of reason). 

Ephraim had grown very pale. After he had watched her for a while, hesaid with a sad smile, "You will not come home with me to-day, Susannah?"

"I must think over all this again, Ephraim. I don't know how thesethings can be, but what you admit is very strange. "

He knew from her tone that the die was cast; he had no heart to discussthe laws that govern marvels. 

"If at any time, any hour of the day or night, you should wish to cometo us, Susannah, the door is open. "

"You have been very kind, Ephraim. There is not much use in my trying tosay anything about how good you are, but--" She stopped, thinking of herrecovered confidence in his character and her husband's; in thisthought she experienced an elevation of the spirits, a new hopefulness, which, after the dreary blank of the morning's outlook, was likesunshine after rain. With this elevation the religious habit of thoughtwhich she had learned from Halsey intermingled. "O Ephraim, " she cried, "I believe that God sent you to give me back my faith. "

He had nothing more to say after that. He rode away leaving her standingupon the tawny carpet of the fallen leaf, standing in the pink sunshineunder naked trees, and looking after him with tears of gratitude in hereyes. Ephraim looked back once, but not again. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

When Susannah was returning from her parting with Ephraim Croom, shefound Joseph Smith was walking slowly upon the road not far from JohnBiery's hotel. He was holding a small book open before his eyes, conninga lesson, repeating the words aloud again and again as a schoolboymight. 

"It has been given to me to see that the Lord hath need of the learningof this world, Mrs. Halsey. When I have got the Latin and the Greek, Ishall try to find some man who can teach me the Egyptian language, thatI may know how far the ancient Egyptian from which I translated the Bookdiffers therefrom. "

Susannah had expected to find him excited after the events of the pastnight, but instead he was intent only upon committing a portion of theLatin grammar to memory, learning by rote as children did in those days. 

"My husband told me, " she began. She stood in awe of Smith, hardlyknowing how to express herself to him; then she went on, almost roughly, "I don't see how Newell Knight could have gone up in the air and comedown again; it does not seem to me sensible. "

He clasped his hands behind his back, his large thumb holding his placeopen in the lesson-book, and walked beside her, his head bent somewhatforward in reverie. 

"I am often much taken aback at what happens to me now, Mrs. Halsey, butI do declare to ye that that was the greatest wonder I ever saw beforemy eyes; and it's given to me to see that ye've got the same sort ofdifficulty about him as it's natural for me to have. " He began to lapsein his own dialect. "Ye want to see the reason why of things. Well, Itell ye, I've just got down to this point, that I've give up tryin' tosee why. If ye come to that, why was I chosen to lead this people? Itell ye when the words of the interpretation of the Book began to pourthrough my mind, and I'd no power to stop them, and I just felt as if Icould cry like a baby when I couldn't get any one to write 'em down--Itell ye, I used often to ask why. But it ain't no use. What I've got todo is jest to get hold of the guiding that comes to me as clear as Ican, and jest walk straight along those lines. "

She was returning with a heart bruised with the pain of the recentcolloquy at parting, but full too of purpose, feeling that she owed itto Ephraim to reconsider the evidence for Smith's prophetical claim. Sheglanced shrewdly at him as he walked and spoke--young, blue-eyed, large, and mild. The man seemed to her harder to comprehend if his wordwas disbelieved than if it was believed. On either supposition herunderstanding faltered. 

"It is very hard for me to believe these things, Mr. Smith. It is veryhard for me to believe, for instance, about the gold plates. How couldthey appear only to you and vanish again? It doesn't seem to mereasonable. "

"No more is it reasonable, but lots of things in the Bible is as lackingin reason, like the sheet that appeared to Peter with beasts. But aboutthe plates, I'll tell you just how it was, even though it's not just theway other folks has got hold of it. This is the truth, and you can thinkhow hard it was to put it much straighter to folks who didn't believe inme then as they do now. The night that the angel came down three timesand stood at the foot of my bed, and told me to go and get the platesand where they were to be found, my brain just seemed to go on fire. Icould see things I never saw any other time. Why, that night I sawthrough the wooden wall and into the next room, just as if there hadn'tbeen any boards there, and I saw all the air about me full of motes, just as they are in that sunbeam, and it was dark to other people. Icould hear, too, the cocks crowing and dogs barking for miles round; andwhen morning came I got up and looked out, and it was as if I had myeyes to a telescope. I could see the houses for miles and miles. I ranup the hill and worked into the hole, and there I saw the plates, justas the angel had said. I'll never forget to my dying day just what theylooked like, and the sort of writing they had. I took them up andcovered them up as the angel had said, and I carried them home and hidthem, and told my folks. That night I was an awful sick man, and thesickness was on me for some days, and when I looked again at the platesthey just looked like bricks, but the angel told me that they werereally the gold plates with the writing I remembered on them, but werechanged lest any one should see them and die. And I was to keep themhidden. I know that it was true they were the plates by these two signs;firstly, whenever I hid myself and took the bricks in my hand, the wordsof the Book of Mormon came pouring through my mind, so I was like to cryout if I couldn't get some one to write them down; and Cowdery he did itand believed, and Martin Harris he heard me at the dictation and hebelieved, and likewise the Whitmers. And the second proof is that afterI had buried the bricks by command, and we was far away from the placewhere they lay, Martin Harris and Cowdery and David Whitmer saw theplates, the very same as I had told them; they were floating in the airat the time of prayer. "

"But, Mr. Smith, St. Peter saw the sheet in a dream; there isn'tanything in the Bible about things or people floating in the air whenpeople are awake. "

"Well, I don't know, sister, about that. There was Philip when hefinished baptisin' the African. Ye see, in going to Azotus he must havegone up before he went along, or he'd have struck agen the trees; andour brother Newell, not being as good as Philip, and not having as muchfaith, ye see, he jest began to go and had to come back again. Mebbewhen he's engaged in the work for a year or two he'll become an apostletoo. Did ye never think, Sister Halsey, that Providence might take usup, intending to do great things with us, and jest have to set us downbecause we hadn't learned to have faith enough?"

This spiritual significance of the episode of Newell Knight had notoccurred to Susannah before. It touched her own case. 

He went on. "When I think of the future that is opening before us, Sister Halsey--why, when I think of how all the nations are to begathered in--there's persecutions in store, and we must be tried byfire, but there's riches and honour and blessing for those as shall besteadfast; and it's borne in upon me that the Kingdom shall be set up inthe west of this land. " He turned and looked at her, becoming elevatedin mind and rising again into finer language. "And the men that are likeunto thy husband, and have the single eye to believe and obey the wordof the Lord, shall become as princes, dispensing bread to the hungry, and the water of life to them that are athirst; and the beautiful womenwho fail not but continue faithful, shall be as princesses drivingbehind white horses and wearing silken robes, and comforting the sick intheir sickness, and welcoming the women of the nations as they come fromdistant lands, teaching them that which is good--" He drew his breath, as if about to say more and yet larger words, but remained silent, looking upon the open space of the fields. Then his mien, which hadbecome enlarged, contracted somewhat, as if the vision were past. 

"Why, Mrs. Halsey, when I do think of it, it seems as if one day at atime were'nt enough, and as if I couldn't just set myself to get theLatin and the Greek, and preach just to a few folks and help a personthat's needing a bit of help; but it's borne right in here upon me thatwhat we need is the learning of the world, otherwise called the wisdomof the serpent. I never was a great hand to learn, and father he didn'tmake me, so it comes harder now; but I'll see to it that the young onesof our folks shall take to learning mighty early; and what we want is tobe faithful in small things, and not stumble in our faith if now andthen a man do rise into the air. "

She felt his blue eyes, mild but shrewd, meeting hers as he came to thislast item. 

"Sister, 'twas given to me to know the first time as I saw you thatthere was a great work for you to do in comforting and establishing theelect, and it comes to me now that you'd better be getting some moreeducation, for although I suffer not a woman to teach, yet she mayestablish that which is already taught. "

Inclined to put some question that would bring out more definiteinstruction as to her own special function in the Church, she did notnotice two men who were approaching from the other side in a gig untilthey were close upon them. 

One of these was a well-to-do farmer, the brother of a woman who hadrecently been converted at one of Smith's meetings. Now he was breathingout revenge. He sprang to the ground, striking at Smith with a heavywhip. Susannah saw the mildness of the prophet's eye turn into a sharpglitter. She realised that he was not afraid, although when the otherman also sprang upon him there was not the least doubt but that he mustbe worsted in such an assault. 

In the minute that Smith was wrestling with the farmer for thepossession of the whip, Susannah wrung her hands in an agony and ranforward toward the hotel, screaming aloud for help; then, afraid of whatmight befall in her absence, she ran back. By this time the two men hadthrown Smith down. Even then he showed his strength, for they struggledhard to get the whip, which he had seized from them. 

In her storm of feeling Susannah for the first time came out from thehabits of girlish timidity. Hardly knowing what she said, what she wasabout to say, she heard the words of her own fierce indignation ring outon the air of the mild autumn morning. The scene--the bare road, thesere weeds and grasses, the prostrate prophet, the flushed faces of thetwo burly countrymen upturned to hers as they stooped, crushing himdown--all was photographed on her mind by excitement. 

By the intensity of her upbraiding she arrested the attention of Smith'senemies for a minute till, as if he revolted against his own weakness, one of them gave vent to a loud jest, at which the other laughed. 

The words meant nothing to Susannah, nothing more than the Latin wordsof the lesson-book that lay torn and muddy at her feet, but Smith nosooner heard them than he hurled himself from the ground with almostsuperhuman strength. 

Both men were forced in self-defence to close upon him. Smith shoutedaloud, although a hand on his throat almost choked him, "Go to thehotel, Mrs. Halsey; go in to your husband. " Susannah knew now that hewas fighting for her, not for himself; the allegiance of his glance gaveher a thrill of loyalty to him which was wholly new. 

Two men ran out from the hotel, and behind them John Biery. When theyneared the place the farmer and his accomplice got into their gig andcalled back fierce threats against Smith as they went. John Biery was aconstable, yet, although he saw that Smith had been brutally assaulted, he made no attempt to pursue and capture the offenders. The other mencontented themselves with picking up his hat and book and remarking thatthe men that had run away hadn't had no sort of right, and that Smithought to have the law on them. Susannah was the more enraged by thisrefusal to interfere. 

Smith wiped his face from dust and blood. It pleased Susannah's love ofdignity to observe that when he spoke it was not in impotent wrath. 

"Go in to your husband, Mrs. Halsey, and tell him to rejoice that we areaccounted worthy to suffer. "

That was not exactly the news that Susannah did bring when she went backto her husband's room. Her feelings were so upwrought that it was sometime before, in pouring out to Halsey her indignation, she could findrelief. Whatever might or might not be the truth of Smith's heart, itremained true that in this persecution the many were ranged against thefew, and were lashing each other on by false reports to lawlessbrutality. Like the Psalmist, Halsey led her as it were into the houseof the Lord, and pointed out the end of the wicked and the award of therighteous. He added to the then popular notion of external rewardthoughts which had been working in his own mind under the influence ofthat time-spirit which leads such minds as his in the foremost paths. Hespoke to her of the strength of character gained and lost by all thatwas done and suffered in the right way or in the wrong. 

Susannah was soothed. She knew that the truth was being spoken to her, and her heart leaped forth to do reverence, not only to it, but to theman who could find it in the midst of such insults. Ephraim was good. Ifhe could only know how good Angel was, he would not have asked her toreturn. All thought of deserting the new cause now was gone; the bloodthat had trickled from Smith's bruised head, the danger that menacedHalsey, sustained her. She wrote to Ephraim to that effect. 

Some days after, when driving past Biery's hotel from a meeting he hadbeen holding in the town of Geneva, Joseph Smith entered and laid beforeSusannah books for the cultivation of her mind--a Latin grammar andexercise book like his own, a Universal History, and a primer of NaturalPhilosophy. He told her that in two weeks, when she had mastered theircontents, he would bring her others. He left hastily, the business ofthe Church pressing. 

In his idea it seemed that the rudiments of a language would take nolonger to acquire than the contents of an English book written in apopular style. The man was very ignorant of the things that most menknow, but possibly no other man in the world would have known thatwriting Latin exercises would bring contentment to Susannah's heart. There was nothing in such a request to awake suspicion and antagonism, and there was much in the regular mental exercise to keep her mind frombrooding on its scepticism or upon Ephraim's kindness. As a child sitsdown to an intricate game, she sat down, day after day, to her lesson. Soon the stimulus of knowing that the prophet had actually mastered hisgrammar in two weeks wrought the determination not to lag very farbehind. Her husband, who had had fair schooling, helped her. 

There began to be a strange race between the prophet and Susannah forthe acquisition of knowledge. They learned out of all sorts oflesson-books, not on any sound principle of work, but with avidity. 

Susannah was the only woman in the new sect to whom Joseph Smith gavethe commandment to become learned. She was not impervious to this subtleflattery. Rude and poor as he was, Smith was now spiritual dictator to alarge number of souls, and she saw that from herself he sometimes askedcounsel. Parted from Ephraim, having grown accustomed to a husband withwhom self-repression was one of life's first laws, it was not surprisingthat under Smith's suggestion a new phase of life began in which herunderstanding, not her heart, developed. "Why believe in Moses and theprophets if not in Smith--in the miracles of yesterday if not in thoseof to-day?" was the question with which Halsey prefaced the sermons hebegan to preach. The answer that his logic deduced carried conviction tomany of his hearers, but in Susannah's mind the question alone madeway. 

_BOOK II. _

CHAPTER I. 

In the next year, 1831, the new church was formally organised, and thiswas the "revelation" given for her direction by the mouth of JosephSmith--"And now, behold, I speak unto the Church; thou shalt not kill;thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not lie; thou shalt love thy wife, cleaving unto her and to none else; thou shalt not commit adultery; thoushalt not speak evil of thy neighbour, nor do him any harm. Let him thatgoeth to the East tell them that shall be converted to flee to theWest. "

The reports of the first missionaries, who had travelled westward, preaching both to the Indians (called by the "Saints, " Lamanites) and towhite men, were received in the beginning of this year, and the pointdesignated for the first station of the Church on its way westward was aplace called Kirtland, on the banks of the Chagrin River, in northernOhio. Thither Halsey was sent, having commands to preach by the way. 

At Halsey's wayside meetings the old hymns and the old tunes were sung. The new doctrine embraced all that was supposed to be alive in the old;it repudiated only what was supposed to be dead. It offered thatenlargement of human powers which the belief in wonders implies, a newform of church government, a new land to live in, a new hope of avisible and glorious church, and, above all, a living prophet. If thepersonality of the prophet seemed more attractive to those who believed, not having seen him, to Susannah, who knew the baseness of his origin sowell, the sudden increase of his influence over hundreds of peopleseemed the greatest of marvels; and it was impossible but that even hisperson should gain some added grace from the reflected light of success. Halsey was only one of a dozen successful Mormon preachers who wereconverging with their train of followers upon the first station of thenew church. 

There is no spot in northern Ohio more lovely than the five hills orbluffs that rise from the banks of the Chagrin River and its tributarybrooks twelve miles to the south-east of what is now the city ofCleveland. On the shores of the river and its streams lie green levels;from these the bluffs rise steeply for some one or two hundred feet totablelands of great fertility. 

The site for the first Mormon temple was on the highest of these hillsoverlooking the three valleys. Its foundations were quickly laid. Around it upon the slope and tableland, up and down the valleys, andupon the opposite hills, the wooden houses of the converts began tospring up, not unlike in colour to a crop of mushrooms, and very like inthe suddenness of their growth. 

Not long after Susannah and Halsey had reached Kirtland, Joseph Smith, with a convert named Rigdon, went on, with missionaries who weretravelling farther west, in order to find in the wilderness the placethat was appointed for the building of Zion or the New Jerusalem. At thesame time all those men among the converts who were deemed fit were sentout in couples to preach the new Gospel, some back to the eastern Stateswhence they had come, some to Canada, some to the south. To Joseph Smithit was given to know who was to go and who to stay. Halsey was directedto remain, to receive and establish the new converts who came, to tithetheir property for the building of the temple, and to found, accordingto Smith's direction, a school of the prophets. 

"And to thy wife, Susannah, it shall be given to teach the children suchworldly learning as she has herself acquired, until it may be possiblefor us to appoint for them a more learned male instructor. "

Joseph Smith spoke these words in the room which served him as businessoffice and chapel. He was drawing on his gloves, ready to go forth uponthe journey to Missouri. 

Several of the elders and their wives were present, some busy on oneerrand and some on another. Susannah, being with Halsey, received thecommand in person, although it was not directly addressed to her. Shehad observed that since her arrival at Kirtland the prophet neveraddressed himself to her directly when in public. In many ways hismanners were becoming gradually more formal, and his relapses into hisnative speech less frequent. 

Susannah could not criticise keenly, so much she marvelled at the man. His activities before starting on this journey were almost incredible. Every hour he had made decisions, for the most part successful, concerning the adaptability of men whom he had only seen, for labours ofwhich he knew as little. He had preached continually. He had baptisednewcomers in the icy floods of the April stream. He had advised as tothe choice of lands and their manner of cultivation, as to the size andform of houses. He had visited the sick and planned merry-makings forthe young. In addition to all this, even while preparing for the longjourney into an unknown region, he was busy learning three languages, and was laying plans, not only for missionary campaigns that were tospread over the whole earth, but for a new translation of the OldTestament. If the better clothes that he had begun to wear sat somewhatpompously upon him, if his manners now sometimes indicated an attemptnot only to be, but to appear, a prophet, such small affectations sankout of sight in the light of such extraordinary ability. 

After Smith and Sydney Rigdon had started westward, Susannah went overto console Emma. The prophet's wife was at that time living in abuilding of which the front part was the general store whence thematerial needs of the growing church were as far as possible provided. Susannah passed through between bales of cloths, boxes, and barrels ofprovisions. It was dusk; a young man who served in the store carried acandle before her, and the odd-shaped piles of merchandise threw strangemoving shadows upon the low beams of the roof and walls. The young manheld the candle to light the way up a straight staircase. "Mis' Smith, "he shouted, "here's Mis' Halsey come to see you. "

At the top of the staircase Susannah was met by a cooing, creeping baby, who beat with its little fist upon a wicket gate fencing off the stair. 

"It was the last thing he did before setting out, to nail that gatetogether and fasten it up with his own hands, so as I wouldn't needalways to be running after the young one, lest he should fall down thestair. " It was Emma Smith who spoke; she emerged dishevelled and tearfulfrom an upper room. "When he has so much to think about and all, andElder Rigdon waiting for him at the office till he'd finished. Mr. Smith, he's always so kind, and he knew as that would be the thing aswould give me the most help of anything. "

Emma subsided again into tears--tears that were the more touching toSusannah because Emma was not like most women; she seldom wept. 

"I don't mean to give way, " Emma continued, "but if it was your husbandas had gone, you'd know how it was, and it's the first time I've everbeen separate from him so long. "

Susannah sat down with the child in her arms. When the question wasbrought home to her she did not believe that temporary separation fromHalsey would cause her tears. 

Emma began again with an effort at self-control. "It's a long way toJackson County, quite across Missouri. It's all Elder Rigdon's doing, his going just now. "

Susannah found something that she could say here in agreement. "It maybe wrong, but I--I don't like Elder Rigdon. "

"Well, of course the way he believed, and all his congregation, when theword was first preached to them makes Joseph think that he must be fullof grace. Ye know, to see Joseph when he's quite by himself, ye'd besurprised to see how desponding he is by nature. He's that desponding hewas real surprised, real right down taken by surprise, when he heardthat Mr. Rigdon, so clever a minister as he was, and of the Campbellitestoo, had been baptized and a hundred and twenty-seven of hiscongregation with him. (That was first off, and ye know how many he'sbrought in since. ) He could hardly believe it; he says, 'It seems as ifI hadn't any faith at all. ' And that night he couldn't sleep, but justwalked up and down, and two revelations came to him before morning, andone of them addressed to Rigdon, so Joseph knows of course he's got theright thing in him. Then his education, too; he's got a sight moreeducation than Cowdery. Joseph thinks a deal of education. "

"I don't like him. " Susannah sat upright; her hands were busy with thebaby upon her knee. 

"Well, I dunno. " Emma spoke meditatively. "It said in one of Joseph'srevelations that we should dwell together in love. "

Susannah laughed; it was a bright, trilling laugh, and filled the large, low room with its sudden music. It almost seemed like a light in thegrowing darkness. 

"I guess I'll light up, " said Emma, "it'll be more cheerful. "

Susannah was still playing with the baby, and Emma looked at hercritically. "Joseph thinks a great deal of you, Mrs. Halsey; he's toldye to teach school?"

"I have got more time than most of the women, and my husband can affordto hire a school-room. "

"'Tain't that, " said Emma decidedly, "it's the same thing as makes yesay that you don't talk to any of the other folks except in a civil way. Ye're a bit above all the rest of us ladies in the way ye hold yerselfand the way ye speak. I guess it comes of yer father's folks having beensomebody, and then being so clever at books--ye see, Joseph sees allthat; there ain't anything that he doesn't see. "

Susannah perceived that there was something behind this. "You're notvexed, are you?"

Emma continued with more hesitation in her tones. "No, I'm not vexed. Why should I be? And besides I like you and Mr. Halsey better than anyof the folks, although I couldn't let it be known. "

"There's something that you are thinking about. "

Emma sighed deeply; her mien faltered; she subsided again into her seatby the wall and into tears. "It's only that I feel that Joseph's gettingto be such a great man. Why, there's more than a thousand folks nowlooking to him all the time to be told what to do, and thousands moredrawing in, and Joseph beginning to wear the kid gloves whenever he goeson the street. "

There was an interval of sighs and suppressed sobs. 

"Aren't you glad? I thought you were glad about it. "

"I declare papa and mamma were just wild when I ran away and marriedJoseph, because they said that he was a low fellow, and poor, and notgood enough for me, and now--and now--I begin to feel that I'm not goodenough for him. "

Susannah went over and sat beside her, chiding indignantly. "You knowvery well that nobody could be the same help to him that you are, andyou know very well that there's nobody in the world that he thinks somuch of as you. " She did not say all she thought. She considered Emma tobe Smith's superior, but that opinion would have given acute pain. 

The young church worked upon Smith's principles of thrift, temperance, and co-operation, and Kirtland rapidly assumed the proportions of atown. Susannah became the mistress of the children's school. Smith was agood economist; although he helped the needy, nothing that his convertscould pay for was given to them for nothing. Hence it was thatSusannah's private purse was well filled with tuition fees. 

She had already in mind what she would do with this money; she wouldwrite to the booksellers in Boston who fulfilled Ephraim's orders, andobtain from them some of the books whose names she remembered to haveseen on his shelves. She knew nothing of their contents, she hardlyknew whether she wanted them more for the sake of their contents or fortheir familiar appearance, but she thought that if she did notunderstand them when reading, she could write to Ephraim and ask for anexplanation. She could not think of any other excuse for writing to himagain. It had taken her a good many months to think of this one. 

Halsey, who had learned to drop the Quaker forms of speech when speakingto others, still, moved by the remembrances of his early home, used themin speech to Susannah. He inquired somewhat anxiously concerning theproposed purchase. 

"Dost think that they will contain what the prophet has called 'soundlearning, ' and that there will be nothing in them to distract thy soul?"

"How can I tell when I do not know what is in them?" She did not speakwith impatience. 

"Art wise, dear heart, in this longing?" he asked wistfully. 

Then he carried away her order and despatched it. 

In the meantime Smith had returned from Missouri, his mind filled and, as it were, enlarged by the new land which he said was appointed byrevelation as the site of the New Jerusalem. Jackson County, on thesouth bank of the Missouri River, was the place. He had already gatheredfour or five hundred new converts there, and he was now possessed withthe desire for money to build the new city, and for a million proselytesto dwell in it. In spite of this, after sending out new relays ofmissionaries in all directions, he settled down to the most soberroutine of study. Hebrew was the new language he wished to acquire, andhe felt the call to revise the Old Testament. 

CHAPTER II. 

Only one unusual incident occurred in Susannah's presently peacefullife. One day in the golden October she set out to walk some distance upthe valley of the Chagrin River. The object of the walk was a visit toone of the outlying farmhouses occupied by a family of the Saints; butSusannah, as was her wont, found more joy in the walk than in the visit. When she had passed beyond the meeting of the waters, the valley laylong before her, about a mile in width and quite flat. The stream wasscarcely seen; the ground was covered with flowery weeds, white asterswith their myriad tiny stars, the pale seed feathers of the golden rod, high grasses, and wild things innumerable which had been turned brownand gray by the autumn sun, pink clumps of the rice weed, and smallgroves of the scarlet stalks of the wild buckwheat. This level sea ofweeds stood so high that when she threaded the narrow path they reachedabove her waist. The bees in the white asters were humming as they humin apple bloom. The blue jays were calling and flying in low horizontalflights. The valley stretched to the south-east, then curved; a littlemountain barred the view, upon whose pine-trees the distant air began totinge with blue. On the curving bluffs on either side the trees stood instately crowds; hardly a leaf had fallen, except from the goldenwalnut-trees; the colour of the foliage was for the most part like theplumage of some green southern bird, iridescence of gold and red shotthrough. To her right, where a part of the long hill had been cleared oftrees, the sun shone upon bare gullies in the soap-stone cliffs, makingthe colour of that particular brown bit of earth very vivid. Everywherea soft autumn haze was lying, and above white clouds were swingingacross the pale blue sky. 

After threading the valley path for a mile Susannah was ascending thebluff to get to the level of the upper farms, when, much to hersurprise, she came, as once before upon the hill Cumorah, upon JosephSmith. He was lying under a group of giant walnut-trees, whose boleswere sheltered from the road by a natural hedge of red dogwood andbrambles. He had apparently been occupied at his devotions, but she onlysaw him arising hastily. This time there was no peep-stone; it had longsince been discarded. The prophet had a Bible in his hand, and it wasevident that he had been weeping. It was in those lands the habit ofreligious men of all sects to make oratories of the woods. Susannah'sonly desire was to pass and leave him undisturbed, but he spoke. 

He began severely, "Sister Susannah Halsey, it is not meet that a womanshould stray so far from home and without companions. "

For a moment Susannah stood abashed. Unaccustomed to censure, shesupposed that she must have done wrong. "I have walked this way before, "she began meekly, "but if--" She stopped here, her own judgment in thematter beginning to assert itself. 

The prophet had forgotten his reproof. At all times his conversation wasapt to reveal that sudden changes of mental phase took place within himapparently without conscious volition. He now exclaimed with more modestmien, "It is, no doubt, by the will of the Lord that you are come, for Istood in sore need of comfort, for the revelation of the truth is atrial hard to endure, and at times very bitter. "

"Is it?" asked Susannah intently. It was impossible but that her longcuriosity should find some vent, and yet she shrank inwardly from herown prying. 

The prophet leaned against a huge bole. The ground at his feet wascovered with yellow walnut leaves and the olive-coloured nuts. Thesunlight fell upon him in patches of yellow light. He opened the Bible, turning over the leaves of the Old Testament as if making a rapid surveyof its history in his mind. 

"Sister Halsey, " he began, "when the favour of the Lord rested chieflyupon the Jewish nation, at the times of the patriarchs and David, andwhen Solomon, arrayed in all his glory and in the greatness of hiswisdom, reigned from Dan to Beersheba, mustn't those have been the timeswhen the people walked most closely with the Lord?"

"I suppose so, Mr. Smith. "

"It is not enough to suppose, Sister Halsey, for it is clearly writtenthat when the Jews went contrary to the will of the Lord they were givenover into the hands of their enemies. "

Susannah endeavoured to give a more unqualified assent. 

"Sister Halsey, there has come to my soul in reading this book in theselast days a word, and I know not if it be the word of the Lord or no. "

She saw with astonishment that his whole frame was trembling now. Shebegan to realise that he was truly in trouble, whether because of thegreatness of the revelation or because of private distress she could nottell. She became more pitiful. 

"I hope you are well, Mr. Smith, and that Emma is well. There is nothingto really distress you, is there?"

In hearing the increased gentleness of her tone he seemed to find a moreeasy expression for his pent-up feeling. "It's come upon me in a verycutting way, truly as the prophets said like a two-edged sword, and atthe time too when I was inquiring of the Lord concerning--" He stoppedhere, and she felt that his manner grew more confidential, but he didnot look at her, his eyes sought the ground--"concerning a matter whichhas given me no little heart searching. " He stopped again, she listeningwith a good deal of interest. 

"It's come to me to observe that among the chosen people--there ain't nogainsayin' it, Sister Halsey, though I trust you to be discreet and notmention the matter, but in the days when the divine favour rested onIsrael each man had more than one wife; and the Lord Himself says Hegive them to Solomon, the only objection being to heathen partners. "

"Do you mean, Mr. Smith, that I'm not to mention what everybody knowsalready, that in the Old Testament times polygamy was practised?"

The now entire lack of sympathy in her tone affected him as anintentional act of rudeness would affect an ordinary man. The tissue ofhis mind, which had relaxed into confidence, grew visibly firmer. Heassumed the teaching tone. 

"No, Mrs. Halsey, the only thing that I asked you not to mention wasthat I had any light of revelation on a point on which most of our mindsis already made up. "

"Mr. Smith, you can't possibly be in the slightest doubt but that itwould be very wicked for any man now to have more than one wife. "

"I've heard a great many of the ministers who in times past, in the timeof our bondage we heard and believed, say as it would be very wicked forany one nowadays to take God at His word and expect Him to do a miracleor heal the sick; but I've come to the conclusion, Mrs. Halsey, that itisn't a question of what we in our ignorance and prejudice might thinkwicked, but it's a question of what's taught in this book, looked atwithout the eye of prejudice and tradition. What we call civilisation istoo often devilisation--_devilisation_, Mrs. Halsey. "

He tapped the book. He was becoming oratorical. "The idea of one wifecame in with the Romans. 'Twas no institution of Jehovah, Mrs. Halsey. "

Susannah, more accustomed to his oratorical vein than to privateconference, became now more frank and at ease. 

"You said you didn't know that the idea was from the Lord, Mr. Smith, and I don't think it is. I don't think you'll entertain it very long, and I don't think, if you did, many of the Saints would stay in yourchurch. "

She bade him good-day, and went on up the slope. When she was walkingalong the brink of the bluff in the open beyond the nut-trees she heardhim call. He came after her with hastened gait, Bible still in hand. Shewas surprised to find that what he had to say was very simple, but notthe less dignified for that. 

"I sometimes think, Sister Halsey, that you look down on us all as if weweren't good enough for you, although you're too kindly to let it beseen. According to the ways of the world, of course, it's so. If I'm asrough and uneducated as most of our folks, at least I can think in mymind what it would be not to be rough, and I can think sometimes how itall seems to you. "

His words appealed directly to strong private feeling which had nooutlet. While she stood seeking a reply the natural power that he had ofworking upon the feelings of others, vulgarly called magnetism, so farworked in connection with his words that tears came to her eyes. 

"I don't often think about my old life, " she said with brief pathos. 

Smith was looking at the ground, as a huge, shy boy might stand whenanxious to express sympathy of which he was somewhat ashamed. "I know itmust be a sort of abiding trial to you. " After a moment he added, "Iwouldn't like to make it worse by having you think that I was goin' topreach any strange doctrine. I'd sometimes give a good deal if the Lordwould raise me up a friend that I could speak to concerning the lightsthat come to me that I know that it wouldn't do to speak of in thepublic congregations, because of their upsetting nature, and likewisebecause I doubt concerning their meaning. And of this matter there wasno thought in my mind to speak in public, for it is for the future todeclare whether it be of the darkness or of the light; but to you Ispoke, almost unwittingly, and perhaps in disobedience to the dictatesof wisdom. "

He looked at her wistfully. 

Susannah leaned her arm upon the topmost log of the snake fence andlooked down the slope. His insight into her own trials caused her tosympathise with him in spite of his absurdity. She made an honest effortto assist him to self-analysis. She said, "A great many things come intoour minds at times, Mr. Smith, that seem important, but, as you say, ifwe do not speak about them, afterwards we see that they are silly. Ofcourse with you, if you think some of your thoughts are revelations, itmust make you often fancy that the others may be very important too, butit does not follow that they are, and, as you say, time will weed themout if you are trying to do right. " She wondered if he would resent her_ifs_. She stood looking down the bank in the short silence thatfollowed, feeling somewhat timorous. The steep ground was covered withthe feathery sprays of asters, seen through a velvety host of grayteasles which grew to greater height. Through the teasles the white andpurple flowers showed as colours reflected in rippled water--rich, soft, vague in outline. At one side, by an old stump, there was a splendidfeather, yellow and green, of fading golden rod; yellow butterflies, that looked as if they had dyed their wings in the light reflected fromthis flower, repeated its gold in glint and gleam over all the grayhillside, shot with the white and the blue. At the foot of the bank laythe flat valley, and from this vantage ground the river could be seen. The soft musical chat of its waters ascended to her ears, and among thehuge bronze-leafed nut-trees, whose shelter she had just left, thewoodpeckers were tapping and whistling to one another. 

At length Smith sighed deeply, but without affectation. "Yes, I reckonthat's a good deal how it is. It ain't easy, Mrs. Halsey--I hope in yourthoughts when judgin' of me you'll always remember that it ain't easy tobe a prophet. "

When he had gone, Susannah found herself laughing, but for Halsey's sakethe laughter was akin to tears. 

CHAPTER III. 

Ohio was being quickly settled. Within a few miles of Kirtland, Cleveland and Paynesville were rising on the lake shore, and to thesouth there were numerous villages; but the society of the Saints atKirtland was especially prosperous, and so sudden had been the increaseof its numbers and its wealth that the wonder of the neighbouringsettlers gave birth to envy, and envy intensified their religioushatred. Twice before Smith had left Fayette he had been arrested andbrought before a magistrate, accused of committing crimes of which thecourts were unable to convict him. Now the same spirit gave rise to thesame accusations against his followers. About this time webs of clothwere taken from a woollen mill near Paynesville, and several horses werealso stolen. The Mormons, whether guilty or not, were accused by commonconsent of the orthodox and irreligious part of the community. Hatred ofthe adherents of the new sect began to rise in all the neighbouringcountry, as a ripple rises on the sea when the wind begins to blow; thegrowing wave broke here and there in little ebullitions of wrath, andstill gained strength until it bid fair to surge high. 

About Christmas time there were a number of cases of illness inKirtland. Joseph Smith healed one woman, who appeared to be dying, bymerely taking her by the hand, after praying, and commanding her to getup. After that he went about with great confidence to others who werestricken, and in many cases health seemed to return with remarkablecelerity. It is hard to understand why the report of this, going abroadwith such addition as gossip gives, should have greatly added to therage of the members of other religious sects. Perhaps they supposed thatthe prophet arrogated to himself powers that were even more thanapostolic. They threatened violence to Kirtland on the prophet'saccount, so that before the new year he took Emma and the child andestablished himself with them in an obscure place called Hiram, sometwenty miles to the south. Sydney Rigdon, who by this time was, underthe prophet, the chief leader of the Saints, went also to Hiram to bebeside him. Smith was toiling night and day to produce a new version ofthe Hebrew Scriptures, believing that he was taught by inspiration tocorrect errors in them. Rigdon was scribe and reviser. These two beingabsent from Kirtland, responsibility and work without limit rested againwith Angel Halsey. 

With unsatisfied affections and thoughts wholly perplexed, Susannahbeheld the days of the new year lengthening. Then she fell into theweakness, to which humanity is prone, of hoping eagerly for someexternal circumstance that should lighten the inner darkness. A bit ofstray news one day came to her with the shock of an apparent fulfilmentof her vague expectation. Finney was passing through that part of thecountry preaching. Of all human beings she had ever met, this remarkableevangelist most impressed her as a man who had intimate dealing, awful, yet friendly, with an unseen power. She had no sooner heard that he waswithin reach than her mind leaped to the determination to hear himpreach and speak with him again. She would lay her difficulties beforehim; she would hear from him more intelligence concerning the home whichshe had left than a thousand letters could convey. 

It was March now. The winter's snow was gone. Finney, as it chanced, wasto come as near to Kirtland as the village of Hiram. Susannah spoke toher husband. 

"Did you hear that Mr. Finney was going to preach at Hiram?"

She stood turning from the white spread table in the centre of the room. The morning light was shining on the satin surface of the planed maplewood with which walls and ceiling were lined. Halsey was putting on hisboots to go out to his day's round of business and pastoral work. Heknew just as well as if she had explained it to him that a great deallay behind what she said. He fell to wondering at once what she couldwant. Was it to send a message to the old home by the man whose veryname must recall all its memories?

"I want to go and hear him preach, " Susannah went on. 

Halsey was disturbed. "Thou canst not really have such a desire, " hesaid severely. 

"Why not? A great deal that he preaches is just the same as what youpreach, Angel. "

He saw that she was in a turbulent mood, and that grieved him; but asfor her request, he could not believe it to be serious. 

"Thou art speaking idle words, " he said with a sigh, and he rose to goout. 

"You have not answered me. Why shouldn't I hear him when you agree thatmuch that he says is true?"

"He is in the camp of those whom Satan has stirred up to do us injury. That which thou callest truth in his mouth is but the form of godliness, for it is clear that if God be with those who fight against us he cannotbe with us. "

Something in the expression of her face brought him now a more distinctfeeling of alarm. His nature was singularly direct. He had scarcelyfinished his meditative argument ere he sought to clinch its purport, and, stepping near, he laid his hand gently upon her shoulder. 

"Dost thou doubt, Susannah, that God is with us?"

The crimson colour mounted from her cheeks and spread over her whitebrow. It was as if Angel had asked what he never had asked, whether sheloved him or not, whether all her thoughts and feelings were loyal. Sheknew that for him there was no line of separation between life and love, and love and religion. She was careful for him always, as a mother isfor a delicate child, as a sick nurse is for a patient. She could nothave endured to give him the pain of hearing her denial, even if suchdenial would have expressed her attitude truly. 

"Indeed, Angel, I--I know that you--" she faltered. 

The trouble in his face was growing. "Has not _God_ made the signs ofhis presence clear to us, and even visible before our eyes? If thoushouldst deny the outward signs, is it not by his grace that we live?Susannah, dost thou think that it is in me by nature to bear with theinfirmities and murmurings of our people as I bear with themdaily--babes as they are, learning, but not yet having learned, to liveat peace with one another? Or dost thou think that it is in me toforgive daily the outrageous acts and words of our enemies, trying asthey do to injure our innocent brothers, or even our prophet himself?Yet, Susannah" (his voice was stirred with emotion), "I would bearwitness to thee that every day, as I pray, the anger is taken out of myheart, and I can deal with these very men in the spirit of love. "

Standing erect before him, confused and distressed, she made anothereffort to soothe, even taking his hand from her shoulder and trying tocaress it between her own, but so tense was the question in his mindthat his fingers were limp and unresponsive to her touch. 

"I know all that you would say, Angel; I know that you are good; I knowthat our people, although they have many faults, are trying to do right, and I believe that the people in other sects around us are far morewicked, but--Mr. Finney is not like that. "

"Dear heart, thou knowest well that there is no goodness but that whichcomes from above, and although this Mr. Finney may have a show ofgoodness, as thou or I might have in his place, yet what avail can hispreaching be if God be not with him? So what show of goodness he hasonly aideth the devil; for how can it be possible, when two armies areencamped one against another, that God can fight upon both sides? IsChrist divided?"

A loud knock came to the outer door; Elder Halsey was late in getting tohis work; men were waiting for him. He let the sound of the raps dieaway before he answered them; his searching look was upon her face, hungering for some assurance that his words had met and slain herdoubts. Then he was forced to leave her. 

It was easy for Susannah to obtain a horse to go to the village ofHiram. When the day of Finney's preaching came, after her husband hadgone to his afternoon work, she rode out of Kirtland. 

Since she had made up her mind to disobey she had said nothing furtherto Angel. Why inflict upon him the painful attempt to hinder her whichhis conscience would demand?

The last snow-wreath had faded, but there was not as yet a bud or bladeof perfect green. The valley of the Chagrin lay almost hueless in thecold sunshine. A light wind was blowing over its levels of standingweeds, and whispering in the bare arms of the huge nut-trees upon itsbluffs. 

When the sun began to sink, Susannah had reached the low rolling groundthat surrounds Hiram. The landscape here had a less distinctivecharacter, and there was no vapour in the sky to make the sunsetbeautiful. She was weary of her horse's rough trot, and still more so ofits slow plodding, but she felt excitement. She had conquered thoseforces, part of her womanhood, which urged compliance with her husband'sdesire and her own desire to abide by the homely routine whatever itmight be. The thing that she had done seemed so large that herimagination told her that the event must justify it. 

She had no thought of concealment. She knew only the two families in thevillage of Hiram. Her plan was to go first to the Rigdons and ask forrefreshment, thence to the meeting, and after that to ask for thenight's lodging which she knew that Emma Smith would not refuse. 

In the village she saw that people were moving about and talking with anair of excitement. When she turned to a quiet corner and asked anelderly man for Mrs. Rigdon's house, he stared at her as if at anapparition. 

"Is it Sydney Rigdon's wife that you're wanting?"

Susannah had raised her veil, and he looked at her face with thegreatest curiosity. Flushed with exercise, braced by the sharp air, hercolour was brilliant and her eyes sparkling. Her plain dress and heavyveil appeared to the man to be a disguise, so surprising to him was thebrilliancy of her face and the modulation of her voice. 

"Do you not know where the Rigdons live?" she asked. 

He was chewing tobacco, and now he spat upon the ground, not rudely, butas performing an habitual action in a moment of abstracted thought. "Oh, I know well enough, but if ye won't mind my saying a word to ye, younglady, I'd advise ye to put up somewhere else. I've got darters of myown--in course I don't know who ye may be or what ye may be doinghere. " This last was added in an apparent attempt to attain to somesuspicion that he felt to be reasonable. 

"You think ill of them because you despise their sect, " she said gently, "but I am the wife of one of the elders. "

"Have ye got hold of some news that ye're carrying to them?" He evinceda sudden interest that appeared to her extraordinary. 

"What news?"

"Oh, _I_ don't know. I jest thought 'twas queer, if you'd got hold ofanybody's secrets, that you should be asking where they lived, straightout and open in the street like this. "

His words suggested to her only the idle fancies of prejudice. Someother people drew near, and, dropping her veil, she was starting in thedirection in which he pointed when he spoke again in a more determinedvoice. "You jest tell me one thing, will you?" He even laid his handupon her bridle with authority, "Are ye going to stop at Rigdons' allnight?"

"No. "

"Sartin?"

When he received her reply he let go the bridle, saying in warningtones, "Well, see that ye don't do it, that's all. "

The incident left a disagreeable impression on Susannah's, mind, but shedid not attach any distinct meaning to it. 

Rigdon and his wife were both within. Rigdon locked the door whenSusannah had entered. Then with crossed arms, standing where he couldwatch against intruders from the window, he began to tell her news ofimport. His mother, who was an old woman, his wife, and some youngermembers of the family, gathered round. 

The light fell sideways upon his thickset form and large hairy face. Hismanner was the result of struggle between effort for heroic pose and analmost overmastering alarm. His matter was the evil conduct of thesurrounding Gentiles toward the Saints. It seemed that in this andneighbouring places, evangelistic meetings had been held in whichPresbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists had joined, and Rigdon averredthat the preachers had used threatening and abusive language with regardto the Saints. A series of such meetings had begun in Hiram, small as itwas; and Joseph Smith, like a war-horse scenting the battle, had setaside his arduous task of correcting the Old Testament and gone forth topreach in the open air. At first he had been greeted only with derisionor pelted with mud, but in the last few days he had made and baptizedconverts, and now the fury of the other sects was at white heat. 

Susannah's mind swiftly sifted out the improbabilities from Rigdon'swrathful tale. 

"But the people that gather to such meetings as Mr. Finney holds are forthe most part awaked, for the time at least, to a higher Christianlife. It cannot be they who have used the vile language that yourepeat. "

She almost felt the disagreeable heat of Rigdon's breath as he threw outin answer stories of coarse and brutal insult which had been heaped uponhimself and Smith. The large animal nature of this man always annoyedher. There was much of breath in his words, much of physical sensationalways clinging to his thoughts. At present, however, she was notinclined to judge him too hardly; although visibly unstrung, unwise inhis sweeping condemnation, coarse in his anger, and somewhatgrandiloquent in his pose, there was still much of real heroism in hismental attitude. Braced by the fiercest party spirit, he stood staunchin his loyalty to Smith and the cause, with no thought of yielding aninch of ground to the oppressors. 

"I do not believe, " repeated Susannah sturdily, "that it is the morereligious of the Gentiles who have said and done these things. I havecome here to-night to hear and to speak with Mr. Finney, whom I know tobe a very godly and patient man. "

"Why has he come here?" demanded Rigdon. "He who by his preaching cangather thousands in populous places, why should he ride across thisthinly settled parcel of land, preaching to mere handfuls, if it is notto denounce us? And he has not the courage to go nearer to the placewhere the Saints are gathered in numbers. He will teach his hearersfirst to ravage the few sheep that are scattered in the wilderness, thatby that they may gain courage even to attack the fold. "

Susannah drew upon herself their anger, and so strong was Rigdon'sphysical nature that even his transient anger seemed to embody itself insome sensible influence that went out from him and preyed upon hernervous force. 

The night had fallen. A bell, the rare possession of the largestmeeting-house, had already begun to ring for Finney's preaching. Susannah went out on foot. The Rigdons, as also the Smiths, were livingsome way from the village. She had now a mile of dark road to traverse. 

Closely veiled, Susannah stepped onward eagerly. She felt like a childgoing home. The scene which she had left showed up vividly the elementsof Mormon life that were most repulsive to her, the broad assumptions ofignorance, the fierce beliefs born of isolation, and the growth byindulgence of such animal characteristics as were not kept under by aliteral morality or enforced by privations. She was going to see a manwho could speak with the voice of the sober past, whose tones wouldbring back to her the intellectual delicacies of Ephraim's conversation, the broad, pure vision of life which he beheld, and the dignifiedreligion of his people. 

The meeting-house was of moderate size. It was already filled whenSusannah entered, but she was able to press down one of the passage-waysbetween the pews and seat herself near the front, where temporarybenches were being rapidly set up. 

Many of the congregation had doubtless come as far as she. Men and womenof all ages, and even children, were there. Some, who it seemed hadfollowed Finney from his last place of preaching, were talking excitedlyconcerning the work of God which he had wrought there. On every facesolemnity was written, and stories were being told of one and anotherwho in his recent meetings had "fallen under the power of God. "

When Finney ascended the pulpit Susannah forgot all else. The chapel wasnot well lighted, but the pulpit lamps shone upon him. He had a smooth, strong face; his complexion was healthy and weather-beaten; his darkeyes flashed brightly under bushy brows. His manner was calm; his style, even in prayer, was that of keen, terse argument; he spoke and behavedlike a man who, having spent the emotional side of his nature in someprivate gust of passionate prayer, had come forth nerved to cool anddetermined action. 

With her whole soul Susannah hung upon his every word, unreasonablyexpecting to find some new and unforeseen solution to the problems ofher life. He had pointed out a straight path to multitudes; she hopedthat he could now show it to her. 

The power of Finney's preaching lay in its close logical reasoning, bywhich, accepting certain premises, he built up the conclusion that if aman would escape eternal punishment he must forsake his sin and acceptsalvation by faith in the doctrine of the substitution. He began alwaysby speaking to the indifferent and the unconvinced; he led them step bystep, until it appeared that there was but one step between them anddestruction, and that faith must make one quick, long leap to gain thesafety of the higher plane, whose joys he depicted in glowing terms. 

For the most part there was intense silence in the congregation, although sometimes an audible whisper of prayer or a groan of suppressedemotion was heard. The infection of mental excitement was strong. 

Susannah was experiencing disappointment. Accustomed as she was toexcitement in the meetings of the Saints, her mind easily resisted theinfectious influence. Finney's teaching had not differed in any respectfrom the doctrine which she heard from her husband daily, a doctrinewhich she knew by experience did not save men from delusion and rancour. She still listened eagerly to hear of some provision made in the schemeof salvation against injustice and folly. Surely Finney would saysomething more. 

As it happened he did say something more. When for more than an hour hehad explained the great plan of salvation he touched upon theresponsibility that the hearing of such conclusive reasoning imposed. The sower had sown broadcast; it remained for him to speak with awfulimpressiveness of those forces which would be arrayed against theconvicted soul. Under this head he referred at once and with deepemotion to the devil, who, in the guise of false teachers lying in wait, caught up the seed. 

There could be no doubt that the Mormon leaders were in his mind, asthey were in the mind of his congregation. It became swiftly evident toSusannah that Finney was stirred by what he believed to be righteousindignation, and that he was as content to be ignorant concerning thedoctrines and morals of the people against whom he spoke as were therudest members of the outside rabble who now pressed with excitement tothe open doors and windows. 

The righteous Finney had no thought of unrestrained violence. He spokeout of that deep well of hatred for evil that is, and ought to be, inevery good man's heart, but he had not humbled himself to gain any realinsight into the mingling of good and evil. 

"They are liars, and they know that they are liars, " said Finney, striking the pulpit cushion. "The hypocrisy of their religion is provedby the lawless habits of their daily lives. Having sold themselves tothe great enemy of souls, they lie in wait for you and for yourchildren, seeking to beguile the most tender and innocent, that theymay rejoice in their destruction. "

He used only such phrases as the thought of the time warranted withregard to those who had been proved to be workers of iniquity, but toSusannah it was clear, in one brief moment, what effect his words wouldhave when heard by, or reported to, more brutal men. She knew now thatRigdon's words were true. The so-called Christian ministers, even thenoblest of them, stirred up the low spirit of party persecution. 

She rose suddenly, sweeping back her veil from her face. "I will goout. " She said the words in a clear voice. 

A way was made to a back door by the side of the pulpit. Every onelooked at her. Finney, going on with his preaching, recognised her asshe began to push forward, and he faltered, as if seeing the face of onewho had arisen from the dead. The excited audience felt the tremor thatpassed over its leader; it was the first signal for such obvious nervousaffections as frequently befell people under his preaching; beforeSusannah had reached the door a stalwart man fell as if dead in herpath. 

There was a groan and a whisper of awe all round. This was the "falling"which was taken by many as an indubitable sign of the divine power. Susannah had seen it often under Smith's preaching. She waited withindifference until he was lifted up. 

Then the sea of faces around her, the powerful voice of the preacherresounding above, passed away like a dream, and were exchanged for asmall room and a dim light, where two or three people were gatheredround the form of the insensible man. She escaped unnoticed through aprivate door into the fields, where the March wind eddied in the blacknight. 

CHAPTER IV. 

The house in which the Smiths lived was small. Susannah crossed afield-path, led by a light in their window. In the living room a trucklebed had already been made up. By the fire Joseph and Emma were bothoccupied with two sick children. These children, twins of about a year, had been taken out of pity at their mother's death, and Susannah wastold as she entered that they had been attacked by measles. 

Susannah found that the fact that she had been to the meeting had notirritated the Smiths, although Mrs. Rigdon had called to make the mostof the story. Emma, absorbed in manifold cares for the children, wasonly solicitous on Susannah's account lest a night's rest in that houseshould be impossible. Smith, pacing with a child in his arms, seemed tobe head and shoulders above the level whose surface could be ruffled bylife's minor affairs. With the eye of his inner mind he was gazingeither at some lofty scheme of his own imagining, or at heaven or atvacancy. All of him that was looking at the smaller beings about him wascomposed and kind. 

One of the twins, less ill than the other, had fallen asleep in Emma'sarms. The other was wailing pitifully upon the prophet's breast. 

"Do you and Mrs. Halsey go in and lie down with that young un, Emmar, and rest now for a bit while ye can. "

"I can't leave ye, Joseph, with the child setting out to cry all nightlike that. "

But he had his way. Long after they had lain down in the inner roomSusannah heard him rocking the wailing babe, or trying to feed it, orpacing the floor. Emma, worn out, slept beside her. Upstairs the ownersof the house, an old couple named Johnson, and Emma's own child, were atrest. 

Susannah lay rigidly still in the small portion of the bed which fell toher share. Her mind was up, wandering through waste places, seeking restin vain. The wail of the child in the next room at last had ceased. Theprophet had lain down with it on the truckle bed. Long after midnightSusannah began to hear a low sound as of creeping footsteps in thefield. Some people were passing very near, surely they would go past ina moment? She heard them brushing against the outer wall, and gleams ofa light carried fell upon the window. 

In a minute more the outer door of the house was broken open. Emma wokewith a cry; instinct, even in sleep, made her spring toward the doorthat separated her from her husband. 

The two women stood in the inner doorway, but the coarse arm of a maskedman was already stretched across it, an impassable barrier. The prophetlay on the child's bed, so heavy with sleep tardily sought that he didnot awake until four men had laid hold of him. All the light upon thescene came from a smoking torch which one of the housebreakers held. Some twenty men might have been there inside the room and out. The womencould barely see that Smith was borne out in the midst of the band. Hestruggled fiercely when aroused, but was overpowered by numbers. 

The owners of the house came down from above, huddling together andholding Emma, who would have thrown herself in the midst of the mob. 

Susannah had not undressed. She threw her cloak over her head and ranout, determined to go to the village and demand help in the name of lawand a common humanity. She was in a mood to be reckless in aiding thecause she had espoused. 

By the glow of the torch which the felons held she saw the group closeabout the one struggling man as they carried him away. She fled in adifferent direction. 

She had gone perhaps sixty rods in the darkness out of sight of Smithand his tormentors when she was stopped by three men and her name andpurpose demanded. When she declared it in breathless voice they laughedaloud. In the darkness she was deprived of that weapon, her beauty, bywhich she habitually, although unconsciously, held men in awe. 

"Now, see here, sister, you jest sit quietly on the fence here, and seewhich of them's going to get the best of it. Your man's a prophet, youknow; let him call out his miracles now, and give us a good show of themfor once. He's jest got a few ordinary men to deal with; if he and hismiracles can't git the best of them he ain't no prophet. Here's aflattish log now on top. Git up and sit on the fence, sister. "

While she struggled in custody another group of dark figures camesuddenly at a swinging trot round the dark outline of one of the nearerhouses. They brought with them the same kind of lurid torch and asmoking kettle or cauldron carried between two. The foremost among themwere also carrying the body of a man, whether dead or alive she couldnot see. When he was thrown upon the ground he moved and spoke. It wasRigdon's voice. She perceived that he was helpless with terror. Theprophet had certainly struggled more lustily. 

"Now you jest keep still, sister, " said the loudest of her threecompanions. "Kill him? not if ye don't make a mess of it by interferin'. It's only boilin' tar they've got in the pot. "

Susannah covered her face with her hands; then, too frightened toabstract her mind, she gazed again, as if her watchfulness might hindersome outrage. The group was not near enough, the light was toouncertain, for her to see clearly. The shadows of the men were castabout upon field and wall as if horrible goblins surrounded andovershadowed the more material goblins who were at work. They weretaking Rigdon's clothes from him. Their language did not come to herclearly, but it was of the vilest sort, and she heard enough to make herheart shiver and sicken. They held over him the constant threat that ifhe resisted they would kill him outright. If Smith, too, were exposed tosuch treatment she did not believe that he would submit, and perhaps hewas now being done to death not far off. 

When they began to beat Rigdon with rods and his screams rang out, Susannah could endure no longer. She broke madly away from her keepers, running back along the road towards Emma's house. They essayed tofollow; then with a laugh and a shrug let her go, calling to her to runquick and see if the prophet had fetched down angels to protect him. 

Susannah ran a long way, then, breathless and exhausted, found that shehad missed a turning and gone much too far. Afraid lest she should loseherself by mistaking even the main direction in which she wanted to go, and that while out of reach of any respectable house she might again beassailed by members of the mob, she came back, walking with morecaution. She had no hope now of being the means of bringing help. Shehad come farther from the village instead of nearing it, and what fewneighbours there were, having failed to interfere, were evidentlyinimical. 

When she found the right turning she again heard the shouts of someassaulting party, and, creeping within the shadow of trees, she waited. 

At length they passed her, straggling along the road, shouting andsinging, carrying with them some garments which, in rough horse-play, they were tearing into fragments. When the last had turned his back towhere she stood she crept out, running again like a hunted thing, fearing what she might find as the result of their work. To increase herdistress the thought came that it was more than possible that like workhad been going on at Kirtland that night. Tears of unutterableindignation and pitiful love came to her eyes at the thought that Angel, too, might be suffering this shameful treatment. Across some acres ofopen ground she saw the Smiths' house, doors and windows lit by candles. Thither she was hastening when, in the black space of the nearer field, she almost fell upon a whitish form, grotesque and horrible, which wasrising from the ground. 

"Who is it?" asked Joseph Smith. 

He stood up now, but not steadily; his voice was weak, as if he hadbeen stunned, and his utterance indistinct because his mouth hadapparently received some injury. She thought of nothing now but that hewas Angel's master, and that Angel might be in like plight. 

"What have they done? What is the matter?" she whispered tenderly, tearsin her voice. 

"Is it you?" he asked curiously. He said nothing for a minute and then, "They've covered me with the tar and emptied a feather-bed on me. Ifye'd have the goodness to tell Brother Johnson to come out to me, Mrs. Halsey--"

"They have hurt you other ways, " she said tremulously, "you arebruised. "

"A man don't like to own up to having been flogged, ye see; but Peterand Paul and all of _them_ had to stand it in their time, so I don'tknow why a fellow like me need be shamefaced over it. But if you'd begood enough, Mrs. Halsey, to go and tell Emmar that I ain't much hurt, and send Brother Johnson out with some clothes or a blanket--"

He stopped without adding that he would feel obliged. As she went sheheard him say with another sort of unsteadiness in his tone, "It's realkind of you to care for me that much. "

In her excitement she did not know that she was weeping bitterly untilshe found herself surrounded by other shuddering and weeping women inEmma's room; for other of the converts in Hiram, hearing of the violenceabroad, had crept to this house for mutual safety and aid. 

It is the low, small details of physical discomfort that make thebitterest part of the bread of sorrow. Now and afterwards, through allthe persecutions in which she shared, Susannah often felt this. If shecould have stood off and looked at the main issues of the battle shemight have felt, even on the mere earthly plane, exaltation. Yet onetruth her experience confirmed--that no human being who in his time andway has been hunted as the offscouring of the world--no, not thenoblest--has ever had his martyrdom presented in a form that seemed tohim majestic. It is only those who bear persecution, not in its realitybut in imagination, who can conceive of it thus. 

All night the women were crowded together in the small inner room withthe two sick babes, while Emma and two of the brethren performed thepainful operation of taking the tar from Smith's lacerated skin. Theprophet bore himself well. Now and then, through the thin partition thewatchers heard an involuntary groan, but he was firm in hisdetermination to be clean of the pitch, and to preach as he hadappointed the next day. 

At dawn Susannah went to get her horse at Rigdon's house. The animal wassafe. When she had saddled it she inquired after the welfare of thosewithin the house. Rigdon was raving in delirium. He had, it seemed, beendragged for some distance by his heels, his head trailing over stonyground. They had not been able to remove the tar and feathers. He layupon a small bed in horrible condition. His wife, with swollen eyes andpallid face, was sitting helpless upon the foot of the bed, worn outwith vain efforts to soothe him. His mother, a thin and dark old woman, vibrating with anathemas against his tormentors, led Susannah in and outof the room silently, as though to say, "This is the work of those whosevirtue you extolled. "

The village, the low rolling hills about it, lay still in the glimmer ofdawn. The men of violence were sleeping as soundly, it seemed, asinnocence may sleep. The famous preacher, and all those souls that hehad thrilled through and through for good and evil, were now wrapped insilence. Susannah rode fast, guiding her horse on the grass by theroadside lest the sound of his hoofs should arouse some vicious mind torenewed wrath. Her imagination, possessed by the scenes of the pastnight, presented to her lively fear for Halsey's safety. She gave herhorse no peace; she thought nothing of her own fatigue until she hadreached the Chagrin valley, and the walls of the Mormon temple which wasbeing reared upon Kirtland Bluff were seen glistening in the sunlight, with the familiar outline of the wooden town surrounded by gray wreathsof the leafless nut woods. It was high day, and the people weregathering for morning service when Susannah rode her jaded horse throughthe street of the lower village and up the hill of the Bluff. 

As she lifted the latch of her own door Angel was about to come out topreach. His face was very white and sad. Susannah's glad relief, fatigue, and excitement found vent in tears. 

"You are safe!" she cried. "Oh, my dear, I will never leave you againwhile danger is near--never, never again!"

In the evening of that day further news came from Hiram. The prophet hadpreached long and gloriously in the open air. New converts had beenmade, and he himself, scarified and bruised as he was, had gone downinto the icy river and baptized them in sight of all. The mob hadshrieked and jeered, but had been withheld by God, as the messengersaid, from further violence. 

Susannah made no further effort to find new life in the old doctrines. All her sentiments of justice and mercy combined to make her espouse herhusband's cause with renewed ardour. 

CHAPTER V. 

In the summer of that same year, while the wheat in the Manchesterfields was still green, and the maize had attained but half its growth, while the ox-eyed daisies still stood a happy crowd in the unmownmeadows, and pink and yellow orchids blazed in unfrequented dells, thepreacher Finney, after long absence, chanced to be again travelling onthe Palmyra road. As was his habit, he sought entertainment at the houseof Deacon Croom in New Manchester. 

The preacher remembered always that his citizenship was in heaven. Fromthe thought he drew great nourishment of peace and hope, but as far ashis earthly affairs were concerned the outlook was at present grievous. 

He was returning from a long and dreary religious convention held in aneastern town, where one, Mr. Lyman Beecher, had stirred up against himthe foremost divines of New York and Boston. They had asserted thatFinney's doctrine, that the Spirit of God could suddenly turn men fromfollowing evil to pursuing good, was false and pernicious; that hismethod stirred up the people to unholy excitements which were productiveof great evil. Now the accusations of these divines (who, thinking thata man's change of mind must needs be so slow a thing, some of them, gray-haired, had not as yet produced this change in a single sinner)were in many points wholly false, in many exaggerated, and where thearticle of truth remained in the accusation there was much to be said indefence of work that had resulted, if in some evil, certainly in muchpalpable good. To such groups of priests and soldiers and publicans ascame forth to John's baptism of repentance, the godly Finney, travellingnow east and now west, had appealed, and that the wide land was thebetter for the crying of his voice no candid person who knew the resultof his labours could deny. He that had two coats had imparted to himthat had none; the extortioner had returned his unfair gains, and somerough men had become gentle. But in the assembly from which Finney hadjust come the larger numbers and the greater power of rhetoric had beenon that side which appeared to show least faith in God and least zealfor men, and Finney had come out from the combat bruised in spirit. 

Some natural comfort the weary man experienced from the sweet charm ofthe summer afternoon, from anticipation of the welcome and sympathywhich would soon be his. He heard, but could not see, the Canandaiguawater as it ran under its canopy of willows, over whose foliage thelight wind passed in silver waves. On the height of the hill above themill-dam he turned his horse into the yard of the Croom homestead. Thestalwart deacon in overalls, his excitable, slender wife, hercap-strings flying, came forth, the one from the barn, the other fromher bake-house. 

It was not to either of these worthy souls that Finney intended first toconfide the story of his glimpse of Susannah. It said much for thesterling truth of this man's soul that, accustomed as he was to demandfrom himself and others public confession of those experiences mostprivate to the individual soul, he had not lost delicacy of feeling orreverence for individual privacy in human relationships. He had not beenat this house since the month after Susannah's departure, whenexcitement and wrath still raged concerning her. He judged that in thehearts of the older members the wound had healed, leaving only thehealthy scar that such sorrows leave in busy lives. He knew, too, thatin Ephraim's heart the blade of this grief had cut deeper. 

The supper over, the full moon already gilding the last hour of thesummer daylight, Ephraim donned his hat to take the solitary eveningstroll to which he had become accustomed. He thought to leave the triowho were in complete accord of sentiment to talk longer over thepersecution which Finney endured, but on the little brick path betweenthe flower-beds the evangelist came up with him. 

Ephraim was but half pleased. It was in this brief evening hour that heset his thoughts free, like children at playtime. Like other studentsforced to live in invalidish habits, he had established a rule ofthought more strict than men of active callings need. At certain hourshe would study his country's social, political needs; at others he wouldhelp in his father's farm management; at others he would study someexact science. But when the measured hours of his day were over, andbefore he lit his student's lamp, for a while he turned his fanciesloose, and they ran all too surely to play about Susannah's charms, about the circumstances of her life. This was not his happiest hour. Theeternal advantage of love was lost for the time in its present distress. Hateful thoughts were the results of this self-indulgence, yet he hatedmore anything that came as interruption. During these years the lover inhim had not grown what the world calls wise. 

For some minutes Finney, controlling the briskness of his ordinary pace, walked by Ephraim's side and contented himself with the gracious scene, passing remarks upon weather and crops. Soon, for the value of timealways pressed upon him, his business-like voice took a softened tone, and he began preaching a heart-felt sermon to his one listener. 

The subject of the sermon was "the fire God gave for other ends, " and heventured to point out to Ephraim, in his plain, logical way, that it waswrong to waste on a woman that devotion which God intends only himself. 

Ephraim smiled; it was a good-tempered, buoyant smile. "Did it everoccur to you, Finney, to reflect that, with your opinions, had you beenthe Creator, you would never have made the world as it is made? Whattime would you ever have thought it worth while to spend in developingthe iridescence on a beetle's wing, in adjusting man's soul till itresponds with storm or calm, gloom or glory, to outer influence, as thesurface of the ocean to weather?"

Finney was puzzled, as he always was, by Ephraim's _bonhomie_ and hisstrange ideas. "But what have you to advance against what I have alreadysaid, Ephraim?"

"Advance? I advance nothing. I even withdraw my painted insects and thestorms of emotion by which I had perhaps thought that God did his bestteaching; I withdraw also my exaltation of that strait gate of usewithout abuse for the making of which I had almost said Heaven hands usthe most dangerous things. I withdraw all that offends you, Finney, inorder to thank you for having spoken her name. No one else has spoken itin my hearing since they knew of my last parting with her, and I--I amfool enough half the days to wish the clouds in their thunder-clapswould name her. "

The voice of the whip-poor-will complained over the tops of the woodlandin near and far cadence through the warm moonlit air. Beside this andthe throb of insect voices there was no sound. "I came out thisevening, " said Finney, "to tell you that last March in Ohio I saw_her_. " His voice fell at the pronoun in sympathetic sorrow. 

"Yes?"

"When I was about to return from Cincinnati I was advised to gonorthward to the Erie Canal, in order that I might pass through thatpart of the State which has been sorely infected by the cancer of thathypocrite's teaching. "

There was no need in the district of Manchester for Finney to explainwhat hypocrite he meant. In his own country Smith was commonly held tobe the arch-hypocrite. 

"The devil has surely espoused that cause in earnest, for the number ofdeluded souls in that part of Ohio and in southern Missouri, andscattered as missionaries up and down the country, is, I hear, betweenthree and four thousand. "

"And always among those who worship the letter of the Scripture, "remarked Ephraim, "for their missionaries give chapter and verse for allthey teach. "

"I was told that their customs were peculiarly evil. Even amongthemselves they lie and steal and are violent and licentious; and theyteach openly that it is a merit to steal from the Gentiles, as they callthose not of themselves; and, furthermore, they aim at nothing lessthan setting up a government of their own in the west. "

"Who told you all this?"

"I am sorry to say that I had it on good authority. Some of the westernbrethren had it from a poor fellow who had been deluded into enteringthe Mormon community, and had barely escaped with his life when hedesired to withdraw. "

"Would you consider a pervert from your own sect the best witness of itstenets? But you say that you saw my cousin?"

Finney told what had led him to the village of Hiram, and said, "When Ispoke of the sins of the Mormons, a young woman seated near the front ofthe congregation rose up. It was your cousin. I saw at once by thepallor of her face that the Lord was having direct dealing with hersoul. The 'power' was indeed very great; a strong man fell as dead nearher, who before the night was over gave testimony of sound conversion. After he and your cousin had been led out, many others in differentparts of the building cried to God for mercy. When the sermon was over Isought for your cousin, but when I told who she was, the people of theplace said that no doubt Mormon messengers had come while she waswaiting, and forced her to depart. That night there was a disturbance inthe place; some of the more hot-headed men had the leaders out, andtarred and feathered them--a dastardly deed! I have been threatenedmyself with being rid on a rail and tarred when the devil stirred up thepeople against my preaching, but the Lord mercifully preserved me. 'Tisa shameful practice, but I hear it was done to these men to intimidatethem from the more violent crimes which they had conspired to commit. Inthe morning I was forced to go, as I was advertised to preach at manystations farther on, or I would have denounced the violence from thepulpit. I could not find out anything more concerning your cousin, butthe Lord has never allowed me to doubt that the many prayers which wehave offered on her behalf were answered that night, for I could see bythe expression of her face that she, like those upon the day ofPentecost, was cut to the heart. "

At the garden gate, under the boughs of the quince-tree, which hadincreased its branches since the day in which Susannah had last passedunder them, Ephraim now stood in the moonlight, barring the entrance. Atlength with a sigh he said, "Alas! Finney, I believe that there are fewsouls under heaven more true and more worthy than your own; but as forthe power of God, 'His way is in the sea and his path in the greatwaters, but his footsteps are not known. '"

Out of his breast Ephraim took a thin leather book, and from out of thebook gave Finney a letter much worn with reading. 

Finney took the letter reverently, and read it by the light of hisbedroom candle. In those days letters were more formally written; thisone from Susannah to Ephraim began with wishes concerning her aunt anduncle and the prosperity of the household. The fine flowing writingfilled the large sheet. 

"I write to you, my dear cousin, rather than to my aunt, to whom I fearmy letter would not be acceptable, for although I can say that I regretmy wilfulness and the manner of my disobedience, still I can neverregret that, having been forced to choose, I threw in my lot with thosewho can suffer wrong rather than with those who have it in their heartsto inflict wrong, for if there be a God--ah, Ephraim, this is anotherreason why I address you, for I am in sore doubt concerning theknowledge of God, as to whether any knowledge is possible. My husband, who denies me nothing, has allowed me to send for some of your bookswhose names I remembered. I thought at first to write to you about them, but I distrust now my own understanding too much to venture. I wouldlike you to know that they have helped me somewhat, for I do not now sayto myself in hard, tearless fashion that I know there is no God, towhich thought I was driven by the reflection that most of those who seekhim most diligently sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. 

"But the more immediate occasion of this letter is to tell you that amonth since Mr. Finney held a meeting not far from us. I went, thinkingto gain some help from him, and to hear news of you, but I was greatlydisappointed, and made very angry. He preached as my husband and many ofour elders preach, and there were among the crowd the same signs ofexcitement and peculiar manifestations that we have constantly among us. But toward the end of his sermon Mr. Finney spoke of my husband'sChurch, and he lent the weight of his influence to very evil slandersthat are constantly repeated about us by those who have not sought toknow the truth. He did us great injury by stirring up the roughest ofthe people to violence. Mr. Finney will, I suppose, visit you and repeatthose lies, which no doubt he believes, but is most culpable inbelieving, because he has not investigated the scandal against us as hewould have investigated scandal against any who are orthodox. I writenow to tell you that that which he says is not true. For although thereare a few criminals amongst us, as in every community, evil is nottaught or condoned. "

As Finney read this letter by his lonely candle he was so far stirred bywhat he deemed the merely human side of the incident as to say tohimself, "Poor Ephraim! She has never even known that he loved her. " Butnext day, in speaking to Ephraim, he pointed out that in the worstcommunities there were always pure-minded women who knew little ornothing of the evil around them, and said he believed that his messagewould still be the means of bringing home the truth to Susannah's heart. 

CHAPTER VI. 

In the meantime an interval of comparative peace had come to Kirtland. The Gentiles, because they discovered that the town was a good marketfor the produce of more fields than the Saints could till, allowed theirreligious zeal to slumber. 

A female relative of Halsey, having lost her friends by death, came fromthe east to Kirtland upon his invitation. 

Susannah went down the hill one summer day to meet the travellingcompany of new converts which brought Elvira Halsey. That young lady hadseen about twenty-five years of life's vicissitudes, and had sharpenedher wits thereon. Slight, pretty, and dressed with an effort at fashionthat was quite astonishing in the Kirtland settlement, Elvira sprangfrom the waggon. 

"I've come to be a Mormon. How do you begin?" With these words shepresented to Susannah a new type of character, fresh, and in some waysdelightful. 

There was quite a crowd at the stopping place of the waggons. Halsey, with other elders and Smith, came to welcome the newcomer. Elvira stoodon tip-toe, peeping about, pressing Susannah's arm with whispers. "Which is Joe Smith, do tell me? Do you go down on your knees to him, and does he pat your head?"

Guided by keen instinct, Elvira did not make remarks in Halsey's hearingwhich would have shocked him, but perhaps by the same instinct she atonce claimed Susannah as a confidante in spite of some feebleremonstrance. 

"Are you not wrong to speak so lightly of our religion?" asked Susannah, feeling that she was an elder's wife. 

"First let me be sure that you have any religion to speak of. " Shelooked up prettily in Susannah's face. "What a beautiful creature youare!" she cried. "And is it to please my cousin Angel that you wear asnuff-coloured dress and a white cap and a neckerchief like an old ladyof seventy?"

As they proceeded together up the white curving road, over the crest ofthe verdant bluff, Elvira announced her further intentions. 

"I am not going to live with you. I am going to board with the Smiths. Iwant to get to the bottom of this business, and see the apparitionsmyself. "

"There are no apparitions, " said Susannah gently. 

"Gold books, you know, flying about in the air, and the angel Maroni andhosts of the slain Lamanites. "

"You expect too much. Such visions as Mr. Smith had came but at thebeginning to attest his mission and give him confidence. "

"Tut! I should think he had sufficient of that commodity. It is I whorequire the confidence, and have I come too late?"

"I would question, if it did not appear unkind, why you have come atall?"

"Bless you, it's relations, not revelations, that I came after. "

"I fear that Angel will not be satisfied with that attitude, " Susannahsighed. She supposed that Elvira represented all too well the attitudeof educated minds in that far-off world whose existence she tried toforget. 

"Therefore, " said Elvira, "I will board with the Smiths. "

Elvira's whim to be received into the prophet's family could not becarried out, but by persistency she succeeded in establishing herself inthe household of Hyrum Smith, where she distinguished herself by twopeculiarities--a refusal to marry any of the saintly bachelors who wereproposed to her, and a perpetual good-natured delight in all that shesaw and heard. She resisted baptism, but to Susannah's surprise, remained on perfectly friendly terms with the leaders of the sect. 

The next two years passed quietly in Kirtland. Susannah, imbued, asindeed were all Smith's friends, with his belief that the peace was butfor a time, cherished her husband as though death were near, and grievedhim by no outward nonconformity to pious practices. Many chance commentswhich she made were straws which might have shown him the way thecurrent of her thought tended underneath her habitual silence, but theyshowed him nothing. It was mortifying to her to observe that Smith, rarely as he saw her, was always cognisant of her mental attitude, whileher husband remained ignorant. 

Susannah gave up the girlish habit of fencing with facts that itappeared modest to ignore. She was perfectly aware that she exercised adistinct influence over the prophet, of what sort or degree she couldnot determine. Little as she desired this influence, she could notwithhold a puzzled admiration for Smith's conduct. He rarely spoke toher except in the most meagre and formal way, and all his decrees whichtended for her elevation in the eyes of the community or for herpersonal comfort were so expressed that no personal bias could bedetected. 

She asked herself if Smith practised this self-restraint for conscience'sake, or from motives of policy, or whether it was that several distinctselves were living together within him, and that what appeared restraintwas in reality the usual predominance of a part of him to which she borelittle or no relation. There was much else in his character to admireand much to condemn. He had steadily improved himself in education, inmental discipline, and in personal appearance and address. He couldhardly now be thought the same man as when he had first preached the newdoctrine in Manchester. This bespoke an intense and unresting ambition, and yet the selfishness that is the natural result of such ambition wasabsent. As far as his arduous work would permit, he gave himselflavishly to wife and child, to all the brethren, rich and poor, whenthey asked for his ministrations. The motherless babies whom he hadhelped Emma to nurse through their infancy had gone back to theirfather's care, but there was never a time when some poor child ordestitute woman was not a member of his household. On the other hand, many of the actions of his public life were questionable. He hadestablished a bank in Kirtland, of which he was the president. EvenHalsey admitted to Susannah that this was a great mistake, that the bankought to have been under the control of some one who understood moneymatters; the prophet did not. He had also set up a cloth mill, andundertaken to farm a large tract of land in the public interest. Theprophet showed to much better advantage when instituting new religiousceremonies, of which there were now many and curious, or when givingforth "revelations" which had to do with the principles of economyrather than its practical details. Susannah thought that the voice ofthe Gentiles all around them, shouting false accusations of greed anddishonesty, would sooner or later find much apparent confirmation if nofinancier could be found to lay a firm hand upon the prophet's sanguinetendency toward business speculation. 

CHAPTER VII. 

In the bleak December two elders came from Zion, the holy city inMissouri, bringing the history of dire tribulation. 

It was a cold night; the first snow was falling upon the wings of agale. Susannah was sitting alone quietly working out problems inalgebra, in which study Smith had desired that her elder pupils shouldadvance. The storm beat upon the window pane, and set the bright logs ofthe fireplace now flaming and now smoking, the varnished wooden wallsdimly reflecting light and shadow. 

Halsey had been out to see the newcomers, who were staying at theprophet's house. It was late when she heard his tread, muffled in thedrifted snow. He hardly paused to shake it from his clothes before hecame near. She saw that he was in a mood of strong grief and excitement. 

"Angel, " she spoke pityingly, "you have had a hard, hard day; you havestayed so very late at this evening's conference. " She held out her handto him. "Do not tell me to-night if you can rest before telling. " Youngas she was, her countenance, as she lifted it toward him, was motherly. She remembered what a mere boy he was, fair and hopeful, when she hadfirst seen him three years before, and now strong lines of purpose andendurance were written upon the face that was thin and pale, the paler, it seemed, because of the transient colour that the storm had given amoment since to the clear skin. 

"I would that thou didst not need to hear, but it is not for us to turnour eyes from that which the Lord hath written for our instruction inthe suffering of our brethren. " Then he added, "The elders from Zionhave told us all. There was great joy and prosperity among them, and themore foolish boasted of their wealth to the Gentiles, saying also thatthe Lord had given the whole land to them for an inheritance. "

"That, indeed, was very foolish, " said Susannah. 

"Nay, but it was small blame to them, for that which they said is true. But among the Gentiles the political demagogues began to be afraid thatwe should rule the country by the number of our votes. The Gentilesgathered together in the town of Independence, and three hundred of themsigned a declaration demanding that every one in Zion should sell allthat he possessed and leave the country within a certain time, and thatnone other of us should settle there. "

"But forced sale would mean that no fair value would be given for theproperty; it would be simple robbery, " she cried; "and they call thisthe land of freedom!"

"They appealed to the Governor of Missouri, but they found that theLieutenant-Governor, a man called Boggs, was among the fiercest of thepersecutors. As for the Governor himself, he advised them to resort tothe courts for damages. "

"What next?" She was impatient at a pause he made. 

He knelt down upon the floor in front of her, laying a calming hand uponher shoulder. "Susannah, there is this one great cause for our deepgratitude to heaven, that this time all our elders with one voice calledupon our people to bear with patience, to cry to God to cleanse theirhearts from all anger and revenge. "

"I suppose that was well, " she said, but with hesitation. 

By the gentle pressure of his hand he still expressed his sympathy forher pain in listening. "Lawyers were engaged to carry the matter throughthe courts. But no sooner was it known that the thing was to be publiclytried than the Gentiles rose in arms. For three nights they entered thehouses of the Saints, beating the men, burning their barns, and in manycases unroofing the houses. Some of our brethren went to Lexington for apeace warrant, but the judge was frightened at the mob, and, moreover, if he had offended them he would have lost much money, so he told theSaints to arm and defend themselves. "

Halsey had paused again. The moral question here involved was to him ofdeep importance. 

"If it was only for self-defence, Angel--" she began. 

He shook his head. "Nay, it was a fierce temptation, and our people arenot yet sanctified, but God in his great mercy withheld them fromsinning against him. For they had no sooner obtained arms than LilburnBoggs, the Lieutenant-Governor, came and disarmed them. "

"And then?"

"Our people were driven from their homes. In the cold storms ofNovember, women and little children and wounded men were forced to fleeout upon the open prairie, and up and down the banks of the MissouriRiver. At last they gathered together on the river-side, and many ofthem have now crossed it, remaining in the opposite county, and theothers have dispersed, poor and homeless, into less unfriendly parts ofthe State. These elders have come here that the prophet may send backsome revelation at their hand, and that we may all gather together whatwe can spare from our abundance for the relief of our fugitivebrethren. "

His eyes were shining with triumphant faith, even though the close ofhis narrative seemed to admit of so little hope. 

"And will Mr. Smith still teach them that they must not strike a blowfor their rights?" she asked. 

This was fast becoming the critical question of the hour. 

In February the snow lay deep on the land. Susannah, like all herneighbours, spent some days isolated by the drifts, the men only goingabroad. On one of these afternoons the prophet tapped at her door. Hisvisit in Halsey's absence was unprecedented. 

Without preface he began to make a statement as to the affairs of theChurch in Missouri. 

"The greater part of our fugitive brethren have at my desire gatheredtogether upon a large tract of uncleared land that lies just across theriver from Zion. It is the desire of the Lord that they should thereawait until it is his will to open the gates of Zion once more. "

"It is _your_ desire that they should gather and wait there. "

She spoke with no rude emphasis, but he understood. This man could readher thought before it was expressed. He pushed his thick hair from hisforehead with a heavy hand. 

"Understand, Mrs. Halsey, that I _believe_ the voice of the Lord hasspoken, but it is also my desire. "

"Does the voice of the Lord ever speak but in accordance with yourdesire?"

The answer burst from him with almost hysterical force, "I would toheaven it did not. "

"But in such cases are not your desires divided against themselves? andthe word of the Lord comes perhaps in accordance with one desire and incontradiction of another?"

He sat for some time looking absently upon the floor. 

"The things of the Lord, " he said, "are of vast importance, and requiretime and experience, as well as deep and solemn thought, to find themout. And if we would bring the world to salvation it requires that ourminds should rise to the highest, and also search into and contemplatethe lowest abyss"--he paused for a moment, and then added in sadundertone--"that is within our own hearts. "

Susannah was silent, wondering what was the true secret of his elusivethought. 

He went on with an effort. "Accepting your own words, Mrs. Halsey, thatit is at my desire that they are there instead of being scattered amongfriendly settlements where they could obtain support, it remains truethat they are naked, hungry, and cold. When I sleep the vision of theirsufferings comes before me. " He went on again with more vehemence. "Itis also by obeying my doctrine that they are cast out of their own landsand from their own hearths. Whether the Lord hath spoken or no, it is byobeying the doctrines that I have taught that they are inwretchedness. " He rose, pacing the room, apparently unconscious of whathe did. 

"I know that this has been weighing upon you, as it has upon myhusband. "

He shook his head impatiently, striking his breast suddenly with onehand. "There is but one heart, " he said, "in which the pains and sorrowsof them all are gathered. "

She began to see that he had a plan to unfold. 

At length he stopped in his pacing, looking toward her. "We must go totheir relief, " he said. "We must gather an army and conduct oursuffering brethren back to their homes in Zion. "

"By force of arms?" she asked. 

"If need be. "

He left time for the significance of these words to be fullycomprehended, and then went on speaking as he paced again. "It may bethat we will not need to fight, that if we get ourselves in readiness weshall need but to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord; and inplain language to you, who expect no miracle, Mrs. Halsey, I would beunderstood to say that if a sufficient number of our strong men, armedfor defence, join our brethren in Missouri, the Gentiles will be afraidto attack. "

At last she asked, not without excited tremor in her voice, "Who? Howmany? When?"

These were important questions with regard to the organising of an army, but the prophet had in mind a point that must previously be determined. 

"Your husband, " he began abruptly, "he has still upon him the taint ofhis Quaker upbringing, for the Lord Christ indeed taught long-suffering, and he sent them out at first, as we also have sent our missionaries, with nothing in their hand save a staff only, but afterwards he said, 'Let him that hath a sword take it, ' and they said unto him, 'Lord, hereare two swords, ' and he said, 'It is enough, ' which I take to mean thatwhere one sword is raised there must be another to ward off a blow or tostrike in return. But your husband is teaching the people that to beararms, even in self-defence, is wrong. "

Susannah saw that already in Smith's indomitable will the era of armeddefence had begun. Her hatred of the persecution caused her sentimentsto chime with his. She only said in defence of Halsey's meekness, "Myhusband would have gone before now to give himself and all that he hasto help these poor people if you had not interfered, Mr. Smith. "

A change of expression came in a moment over Smith's hulking form, as ifa different phase of him came forward to deal with a change of subject. He turned upon her almost sharply, "There is one man in Kirtland whoshall not go to Zion till peace is there. If he went, would he not ofhis own accord rush into the forefront, into the hottest of the battle, not to fight but to receive the sword in his breast and be slain, evenas Uriah the Hittite was slain? Wherefore, I say unto you, he shall notgo. "

Susannah, like all good women, had no keenness of scent for scandals, ancient or modern. She did not remember who Uriah was, and took nooffence. 

The prophet had tarried in his pacing by the window; with hands claspedbehind him he was looking absently out upon the driven snow. Upon hisface was an expression which Susannah only sometimes saw, and that inthe moments which she felt to be his best. She believed this man to havetrue moments of humility and high resolve; it was only a question withher how far they permeated his life. In a minute more he turned againand spoke modestly and sadly enough. 

"As I have said before, it is not in me to greatly love our brotherHalsey's manner of thought, but I perceive his holiness and the Churchshall not lack his counsel. I am here to-day to tell you how much itgrieves me to set a constraint upon his conscience, yet I am here alsoto ask you to tell him from me that it is not the will of the Lord thathe should continue to preach against the spirit of self-defence. "

When he was gone Susannah realised how angry she would have been if shehad heard that Smith had rebuked her husband on this subject, yet nowthat the fiat lay in her own hands to impart with all gentleness, thetask, because of her own fierce attitude toward the oppression, wasgrateful to her. 

When the roof had been set on the white walls of the first great Mormontemple upon Kirtland Bluff, a small army, well armed, well provisioned, went out from Kirtland for the deliverance of Zion amid the prayers andhuzzahs of the little community. There were many who, like Halsey, bewailed in secret this taking of the sword, but the doctrine ofnon-resistance was never preached again. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

After this Susannah's attention was centred upon the coming of her firstchild. 

"'Tain't lucky to have a child when the leaves are falling, " said ElviraHalsey, a certain mist of far-off vision clouding her sparkling eyes. 

Susannah had been greatly weighed down by depression, not fearingill-luck, but regretting for the first time unfeignedly that she hadever joined herself to the sect in which her child must now be nurtured. For herself, feeling often that all religions were equally false, it hadmattered little; with strange inconsistency she now perceived that shewould greatly prefer another faith for her child. Susannah literallyfound no place for repentance; to confess her grief to Halsey would onlyhave been to crush out all the domestic joy of his life; she was toocourageous to do that when she saw no corresponding good to be gained. Yet when the baby at length lay on her lap, grew and smiled, kicked andcrowed, Susannah forgot at times, for hours together, the superstitionsof the Latter-Day Saints. The motherly solicitude which she had longexercised over Halsey changed into something more like friendship whenshe saw him hang over her and her child as they played together. 

Susannah had given up her school. The winter was severe, and mother andchild hibernated together by the sweet-scented pinewood fires till thestronger sun had melted the frost flowers on the panes. Spring hadnearly come before Susannah divined that for the child's sake Halsey hadbeen protecting her for months from the fear of a near disaster that wasweighing upon his own heart. 

This was the year of what was called in the early Mormon Church "thegreat apostasy. " One evening Halsey came in looking so white and illthat Susannah drew back the baby, which she had held out for his eveningkiss. 

In a few minutes she understood what had occurred. Some four or fiveleaders in the Church, with their families and friends, had chargedSmith with hypocrisy and fraud. 

It was not Susannah's own opinion that such a charge could bemaintained. Smith appeared to her to be like a child playing among awfulforces--clever enough often to control them, to the amazement of himselfand others, but never comprehending the force he used; often naughty; onthe whole a well-intentioned child. But she could well see thatchildishness combined with power is a more difficult conception for thecommon mind than rank hypocrisy. 

Angel had been assisting in a solemn excommunication of the apostates. He looked upon them as having been overcome by the devil. 

After this Halsey instituted a series of unusual meetings for prayer andrevival preaching, which he held after the ordinary evening classes inthe School of the Prophets, which was now removed to the upper chambersof the finished temple. Now, as at other times, his preaching wassuccessful. His power was with men rather than with women; they gatheredin excited crowds, and their prayer and praise went up in the midnighthour. 

Susannah was not in the habit of going to bed till her husband returned. One night, after twelve had struck, while she sat warming the dimpledfeet of her restless babe at the rosy fire-light, she was greatlyastonished to hear a tapping, low but distinct, on a window that openedto the back of the house. She lifted her head as mother animals pricktheir ears above their young at the faint sound of any danger. 

After an interval the tap was repeated; it was no accidental noise. Susannah laid the child in its cradle and went nearer the windowshutters, hesitating. 

She knew only too well that this secrecy was the sign of some one's diredistress. She knew the habits of the people; a neighbour's aid wassought freely and with confidence; doors were open at all times to needor social intercourse. 

To her intent listening the accents of a low and guarded tone came inreply to her challenge; the voice was Joseph Smith's. 

Susannah looked with anguish toward her child's cradle. Had some army ofmad persecutors invested Kirtland? Nothing less than fierce persecutioncould be thus heralded. 

For years Susannah had known Smith as a near neighbour, and the stuff ofwhich the man was at this time made is indicated by the fact thatinstinctively she opened the window with noiseless haste. 

Smith climbed in. "Has Halsey returned?"

The fire gave the only light in the room. Smith did not shut the window, but remained sitting on the sill. A bake-house at the back hid the placefrom neighbouring eyes. 

"It's all up with our bank, " said Smith. 

"I feared so, " said Susannah. 

"The apostates took such a lot of money out of it. No bank anywhere inthis region could have stood it. You have always been down on ourmanagement of the bank, Mrs. Halsey, but if it was not good, why thenhave so many of the Gentiles put in their money, and why have they takenour notes all over the State?"

"You never had the capital you advertised. "

"We have land that stands for it. "

"It is not worth half what you value it at. "

Then Susannah became sorry for her sharp recrimination. Punishment hadbefallen; it was a time for mutual help, not for reproach. She saw thatalthough Smith kept himself calm he was greatly stirred. 

"Why are you here?" she asked. 

Smith's huge frame was poised awkwardly on the window sill. He movedrestlessly and touched one thing and another with nervous hands. Then hesaid with a short laugh, "The size of it is, I'm running away, Mrs. Halsey. Ye may think I feel pretty mean, but ye'll do me the justicejust to think how it is. If they'd shoot me in fair fight, I'd go and, if it were the Lord's will, be shot to-morrow, and be thankful too; butye know the sort of vengeance they'll take. I have been beaten time andagain before now, and covered with pitch, and I've been knocked down andkicked and ducked in ponds a good many times, as ye know, and I ain'tashamed to say that I'm afraid of that sort of thing and afraid of theresults on Emmar and the children. If the Lord clearly told that 'twashis will to stay and stand it, why then I'd have no choice, but Ihaven't had no word from the Lord. "

His face was livid; in the effort to make his explanation, whethershaken by the recollections he described or by fear of her contempt, she saw that his limbs were actually trembling as if with cold. 

"There ain't many men, Mrs. Halsey, as would stay and face that sort ofmusic when they could get away, but if it was to do good to mortalcreature I'd think about staying, but it's t'other way. It's me andRigdon as has been advertised as working the bank; it's my blood and histhe Gentiles that have our notes are thirsting for. Suppose we stayedand they took to mauling us again, wouldn't the Saints here take tofighting to protect us? I've taught them to fight in self-defence andthey'd fight to defend me. God knows there are better men than we arethat would be killed right and left if we stayed, and 'twould be no use, for the Gentile numbers would overpower us. 'Tain't no use. When I foundto-day that there wasn't a chance of staving off the bankruptcy I sentEmmar and the children and Rigdon's folks off in a close waggon aftersundown. Rigdon's rid off by another road, and I've got my horse readyand ought to be gone. And there ain't a man in Kirtland as will knowwhich way we've gone by to-morrow, so that no Saint will need to do anylying on my account. "

"You are very sorry for the mistakes you have made about the bank, " shesaid pityingly. 

He gave another short laugh that, like the first, was less like a laughthan a sob. 

"I guess I'm sorry enough, but I don't know whether it's repentance, forI thought I'd done all just what the Lord told me to do, but at timeslike these I'm not so sure of the revelations I hear in my soul, but Iknow I thought I was right at the time; but as for being sorry, if yehad the burden of all these children of Israel in the desert on yourheart, knowing that ye had brought them into the desert, and brought thehunger and the thirst and the pestilence and the enemy upon them, andweren't quite sure at times whether the thing that ye saw leading wasthe Lord's pillar of cloud or the devil's, and if ye was now being castout before the face of men and called a liar and a swindler, and withouta dollar in the world, I guess ye'd know what it felt like to feelsorry. "

The room was a long one; in the fore part the glow from the hearth madeclear the baby's cradle, the table set for Halsey's supper, the closeshutters of the front windows, but the red flame rays were fainter asthey came into this back portion where Susannah stood in dull distress afew paces from the stricken intruder. 

This man had always the power at close quarters of producing strangedisturbance in the emotions of his friends. Susannah was trembling, herheart heaving, if not with pure compassion, at least with wildexcitement on his account. 

With an effort Smith held himself still, but gave again theheart-broken laugh that appealed more than all else to her woman'sheart. "'Tain't all that neither, that makes me the most 'sorry, ' as yecall it. I tried to go in and out before this people, Mrs. Halsey, loving and serving all alike as a prophet should, but I wouldn't behuman man, no, nor fit to be chosen by God for the honour he's put uponme, if I didn't know who amongst us was most worth care and respect, andit's come to my soul this night, now that I can't no longer standbetween you and all the dangers that beset our people in the wilderness, that I wasn't right, maybe, to egg on Halsey to take ye away from yourhappy home, or to make a point as I did, first off, of getting yeconverted--for I was more set on it than I showed at the time. It'sbecause 'twas my doing you married, that I've come to say this; and Isee well enough that 'tain't love that is between you and Halsey, thoughyou are too tender of him to let him see. "

She made a movement of the head, an effort to show reproving dignity, while in fact taken by surprise, her nerves in distressful panic, shehad scarce the power to control herself, none to control him. 

He answered her impulse, although he had not looked up to see thegesture. "Ye haven't got any call to-night to be offended with me, forI'm worth no more, unless the Lord see fit to lift me up agen, than thepaper our bank-notes is written on; and I have just got one more thingto say, then I'm gone. If there's any grit in Joseph Smith, and if itpleases God that he's not going now to his death, he'll not make anotherhome for himself without providing as good a place for you and the youngone. Ye may depend on it. "

He rose up now. "'Tain't no use disguising facts; I'm running away, andI'm leaving ye to dangers and privations. Your money and Halsey's isgone the way of all the rest, and without me to stop him Halsey will flyin the face of the first persecution that's within his reach. If Ihadn't known that there was no chance at all of your coming I'd haveasked you and the child to git into Emmar's waggon; but there's justthis to say, there ain't a tribulation that can come to you that won'thurt me, living or dead, more than it can hurt you. " Then after a pausehe added, "Emmar sent her dear love and good-bye to ye. "

He stood still a moment before her in humble attitude, the words ofEmma's tender farewell lingering, as it were, in the air between them. 

"Have a care what you do. " (He resumed a more dignified manner ofspeech. ) "It's borne in upon my mind that great dangers will lie roundyou. Tell brother Halsey from me that it is the will of the Lord that heshould seek first the safety of his wife and child, and to abide in aplace of safety till the child be grown. "

He climbed through the window. His last act was to close the casementbehind him to save her trembling hands the exertion. His movements musthave been very stealthy, for she did not hear the sound of his steps orthe steps of his horse in the silent night. 

CHAPTER IX. 

After Smith left Kirtland there was a great exodus Missouri-ward of hismore devout followers. The army which had gone out from Kirtland in '34to the rescue of the fugitives from the city of Zion in Missouri hadfailed, through disease and exhaustion, to make warlike demonstration;but the principle then accepted by the children of Zion of opposingforce to force in self-defence, had been bearing fruit ever since in abloody warfare between the hunted Saints of Missouri and their morepowerful neighbours. 

Before the Saints took up arms the Missourians had, it would seem, noreal ground of offence against them except the religious faith which ledthem to proclaim that the land was to be given to them by the Lord foran everlasting possession. Now this provocation was still in force, added to the greater one that the worm had turned. 

So futile had been the mad persecutions, so fruitful the blood of themartyrs, that by this time there were some ten thousand Saints inMissouri, all heads of families, for although Zion in Jackson Countystill lay waste, and the colonies of Clay County had been swept away, the cities of Far West and Diahman, and numerous villages near them, hadrisen like magic, built by the thrift, the organisation, and thetemperance of the Saints. 

As for Kirtland, the hope of making it a prosperous city had died withthe failure of the bank. Of the few who remained two distinct partieswere formed--the orthodox, headed by Halsey, and the reformers, encouraged, if not headed, by the former leaders who were now apostate. In the camp of the reformers there were those who saw visions and hadrevelations. Before this, when Smith was at the helm, it had beencounted unlawful for any but himself to have direct dealings with theUnseen; but the prophet was distant, directing the sect only through hispublished journal, and in this case it were hard indeed if noauthoritative local word were spoken in the orthodox party. AngelHalsey's mystic soul fell easily into the region of voices and visions. In his adversity, fasting and praying more than ever before, he heardvoices which gave practical directions not only for himself but for hisneighbours. When the neighbours refused to accept these ghostlycounsels, which all tended toward a more rigorous holiness, there was noroom left for Halsey's work in Kirtland. He determined to fare forth toMissouri, there to comfort and edify the Saints scattered abroad in therural districts. 

It was now that Susannah expected the sprightly Elvira Halsey, stillunbaptized, to return to the east. Instead of that she proposed totravel with them, helping to take care of the child. 

"Why should I take the trouble to help you and the young un?" she asked, sitting on Susannah's doorstep, languid with the heat. "When I was goingalong the lane last night I met a spirit, so I held out my handaccording to Joe's latest. You've not heard! My! it's in the MillenialStar that if any sort of a voice or dream comes to you, the way to know, whether it's an angel or devil is to shake hands, and if it is an angelyou'll feel a good, firm, solid grip sort of coming out of nowhere, butif it isn't an angel you'll feel nothing. It's kind of Joe to put it ina nutshell, necessary nowadays that we're all hard at it havingrevelations of our own. He thought that nobody would feel the grip buthimself. Quite mistaken. I shook hands with my angel, tho' I couldn'tsee a ghost of him, and when he said, 'You come along now to Missouri, and carry the child half way, ' I had nothing to do but say 'Amen. '"

But Susannah was too much afraid of what the result of privaterevelations might be to laugh at them; she expressed her fears. 

"Bless you, all the dreams and 'voices' in this hustling world wouldn'thave put any guile into the soul of Nathaniel, and they won't into AngelHalsey's. Saints are saints, sinners are sinners, middling folks aremiddling, just the same whether they have three 'revelations' a dayapiece, or one once a year, or none at all. You're fretting because youthink a righteous man might do something wicked, thinking that the voiceof the Lord had told him. Not a bit of it! The Lord will take care ofhis own when they're a little off their heads just as much as at anyother time. "

What few worldly goods Susannah chose to keep were packed in two singlewaggons, Halsey driving the one, and Elvira and Susannah by turnsdriving the other and holding the child. Their long journey through themonth of June was the most perfect pleasure that Susannah and Angel everenjoyed together, the long nightmare of the last months at Kirtland leftbehind for ever, the stage of the future veiled, and the lineaments ofnatural hope painted upon the drop-curtain. A loving fate sent freshshowers on their behoof during the nights, which laid the dust anddressed field and forest in their daintiest array. The child, who hadbeen pining somewhat, affected by the anxiety in the Kirtland home, became lusty and merry. 

"If it wasn't that we are shortly going to be robbed of all we possessby the Missourians, " observed Elvira, "this sort of jog-trot comfortwould become too monotonous, but it adds spice to be saying, so tospeak, 'Hulloa there! we've come to be persecuted too. ' Of course we'llall be killed to begin with, but that's a detail; after that we'll takeour rural mission bespoken for us in the dream. "

Susannah actually smiled and called "gee-up" to the horse. 

"How very little people know, " she observed, "who talk about apersecution as if it would be a means of grace. There is nothing that sohardens and degrades as the constant report of barbarities; the morenearly seen, the more closely inspected, the worse is the moral result. "

"Speak for yourself, " cooed Elvira, "there's one person out there thatisn't hardened and degraded. " She looked with reverent eyes at Angel, who was walking at the head of the foremost horse, crooning a psalm;"and, as for me, I still feel myself quite soft, almost pulpy, and on anelevated plane. "

"You could never talk in your irreverent way if you weren't a good dealhardened and degraded, " persisted Susannah affectionately, "and, as forme, I know that I am. Is there any instance in history of a peopleemerging from prolonged persecution with high ideals of love towardtheir enemies and candour?"

"'Tis commonly said that faith rises from this fire, " said Elvira. 

"Faith that gives its body to be burned and has not charity, " saidSusannah. 

When they reached the vicinity of Diahman and Far West the Stateelections were about to be held. It was reported that over all Missourithe stronger party, that of Lilburn Boggs, was threatening to preventby force the Mormon vote. 

Before commencing his mission to the outlying Mormon districts, Halsey, hoping to avoid this contest, stopped in the Gentile town of Gallatin torest and obtain a fresh outfit. 

"But why don't we pay our respects to 'Joe' now we are within reach?"inquired Elvira with pensive inflection. 

"The prophet is full of cares. A man whom I met at the tavern said thathis activity on behalf of the Saints in Far West is amazing, and sincehis public appearance there the Lord has prospered the city exceedingly;but, as for me, I have been commanded to turn aside to those of ourpeople who are not encompassed by a shepherd's care. "

"If he would but confess it, " said Susannah with a sigh, "my husband wasso sorely hurt with the appearances of fraud in connection with thebank--"

"Suppose you put that appearance of a child down and come and eat thisappearance of your breakfast, and then we'll put on what appear to beour bonnets, and go for what appears to be a walk. " Elvira's sunnyserenity never deserted her. "Say rather, " she cried, "that the prophetdid defraud, but has repented. "

That day was the 6th of August. The voting for the State legislature hadcommenced. The travellers did not know that there was any number ofMormon landholders in this place, but now they could not extricatethemselves from the very contest that they had hoped to avoid. When thetwo women strolled through the streets to see the town they becameinvolved in a crowd at one of the polling places. 

Penniston, a candidate of the Boggs party, standing on a barrel, washaranguing the crowd, and the two women quickly heard the name of theirsect mentioned with contumely. 

"Shall we, " cried Penniston, "allow our State to come under the controlof Mormon horse-thieves and robbers by allowing these outlaws the civilrights that are intended only for good citizens?"

There was a commotion in the crowd near him. Susannah, knowing that herhusband was abroad, felt a sudden heart-sick prophecy of evil. The nextmoment she saw Halsey spring into sight upon a low wall at the side ofthe crowd. 

"Look on this picture and on this, " cried Elvira in a voice audible tomany too illiterate to comprehend. 

The two men, each standing erect above the heads of the crowd, could nothave showed sharper contrast. Penniston was coarse of limb and feature;a low grade of moral disorder stamped his face as clearly as inferiorarticles are ever stamped; no inspector of goods so relentless as God'sservant Time! Halsey had bared his head to the open sky, as thoughinvoking the presence of God in his temple. Upon features too thin andhaggard for beauty, patience and love and truth were written by everyline. 

Halsey's voice, accustomed to preaching, fell with clear modulationsupon the summer air. 

"'Blessed are ye, when men shall persecute you, and shall say all mannerof evil against you falsely, for my name's sake and the gospel's. 'Friends, this evil that is spoken against us whom ye call Mormons isfalsely spoken, and I stand here before you, and before the great Fatherof Truth, who is calling his children everywhere to repent, to say thatevery Mormon who has a vote has a right to exercise it, for we havecommitted none of the crimes of which you accuse us, but you yourselves, as you well know, are many of you here to try to put into office men whoare undoubted criminals. "

In surprise Penniston and his hearers had listened, but now a man, half-drunk perhaps, sprang upon the low wall upon which Halsey stood, and struck him savagely. 

"He is all alone, " cried Susannah, "all alone among so many. " She triedto struggle forward toward her husband through the crowd. 

Halsey believed himself to be alone, and it was not in accordance withhis principles to make any attempt to return the violence by which hehad been assailed; but to his astonishment now a stout man leaped tohis assistance, suddenly belabouring his assailant with blows, and fromfar and near in the crowd there were shouts of encouragement from burlyMormon farmers who had only needed the voice of a leader to declarethemselves. Halsey had thrown a spark, unconscious that a mass of powderlay near. When the men of Penniston's party turned with savage fury uponthe Mormon who was beating their companion, and the Mormons, no lessfierce, rallied round Halsey and his defender, the fight became general. 

Elvira set her quick wits to work to weave a cord that would be strongenough to draw Susannah back to their inn. "They may find out that babyis alone, " she said; "they're wicked enough to injure him out ofrevenge. "

Along the wooden pavements of Gallatin, past the gaily-painted woodenhouses, through the doors of which whole families were now emerging toask the cause of disturbance, Susannah fled miserably, her cheeksblanched beneath her veil, her heart within weeping. 

The sun was shining brightly on just and unjust; the gardens of Gallatinwere brilliant with such flowers as had bloomed in the August when shefirst met her husband. Susannah felt then that the reason why shedesired to clasp and guard the sleeping child she had left was that hewas Angel's son; the pity for injured innocence had been from the firstuntil now her strongest passion, and at the thought of Halsey, innocentand gentle, in the midst of the brutal fight she had left, her soul weptas it were the scalding tears that her eyes refused to shed. 

The boy lay in rosy sleep, a woman of the inn keeping a kindly eye uponhim. Probably nothing but a mother's love could have fancied him ofsufficient importance to attract public attention, but Susannah, lockingher door, knelt by the bed, and spreading protecting arms above him, listened with strained senses for news of Halsey's injury or death. Foryears she had feared that the violence she had seen wreaked upon otherswould touch her husband; violence offered to herself would have seemed atrivial grief in comparison. The fear that has long harped upon sorenerves has a cumulative action upon the pain of its realisation. 

Susannah found herself giving forth short ejaculatory whispers of prayerupon the close air of the plain, small room in which she knelt. It wassuch prayer only as we come at by inheritance, prayer that is one of thehabits by which the fittest have survived. 

Before two hours were past Halsey had returned. He was bruised and muchshaken, but appeared unconscious of injury, and made light of it. Theopen fight had ended with no decisive victory for either party; thechief result appeared to be that malice on either side was for the hourexhausted. Whether because of this or because Halsey gave himself toprayer on behalf of his brethren, the polls were opened quietly at noonand the Mormons voted with the other citizens. 

In the cool of the evening Susannah was sitting beside her husbandholding the sleeping child. The window of their humble room was open, not to any broad, fair landscape such as their eyes were accustomed tofeast upon, but upon the yard of the small tavern. There is, however, innew countries no crowding; space, like air and sunshine, is the commonheritage. Grass grew round the edges of the large yard, and an old whitehorse was cropping it contentedly. A cool air was blowing, and over thewooden roofs of the town stars were beginning to gather themselves fromout the pale dusk. An old negro and two mulatto boys were sitting upon alog at the side of one of the sheds, quarrelling and singing slavemelodies by turns. 

Angel took the hand of the sleeping child and Susannah's hand and foldedthem in his own. "Susannah, it has been given to me to see thisafternoon more clearly than ever before the material triumph of ourpeople. They will rear high cities; they will lead armies; they willcommand wealth; but it has also been shown me that Zion will not be, asI had heretofore believed, pure from sin, for evil has already enteredinto her. Because she has taken the sword her spiritual warfare will notbe soon accomplished; the wheat and the tares shall grow together, andI do not yet see the end. "

There was a pause. Susannah watched the slaves taking their evening easeso light-heartedly. She looked down at the three hands which Angel hadgathered together. The dusk was beginning to make all things indistinct. 

Angel went on. "I would have thee teach the child above all things theunspeakable wretchedness of sin, for the least sin closes the eye of thesoul by which we see God and the things of God, clogs them with the dustand dirt of the world; and when there is no more any clear vision, selfishness is mistaken for love, malice for righteousness, and follyfor truth. So I pray thee, dear heart, be wary, and slay within thyselfthe evil nature, for though I cannot see it, perchance God does; andteach the child above all things from the first to fear sin more thandeath. "

"You shall teach him, Angel. "

"Dear heart, I would not lay upon thee the burden of knowledge of comingsorrow if I dared to withhold it, but I believe, Susannah, that it willsoon be given to me to die for the truth and for our people. " After amoment's pause he went on, and his tone, which had droppedinvoluntarily, became again cheerful. "That is why I have to-daydetermined to change the plan that we have made and to send thee and thechild to-morrow with the company who are about to travel to Far West, where the prophet is now dwelling with his wife, for I know he willnever see thee want. "

Susannah rose up. In the dusk of the low, small room her figure, thechild still in her arms, seemed to tower like a misty goddess orMadonna, such as praying men have often seen appearing for theirsuccour; her voice came clear and strong from a heaving breast. 

"Angel, I will never leave you, never, " and then she added in a voicethat faltered, "Send the child if you will. "

CHAPTER X. 

They did not send the child to Far West, or even insist on Elviraseeking safety there, because that town also became swiftly involved inthe flames of the war which had flashed into new life at the Gallatinfight. The whole land was full of threats and terrors, and many openfights at the polling-booths were soon reported. The Mormons andanti-Mormons in various localities entered into mutual bonds to keep thepeace, but in many cases these bonds were soon broken. 

To the Mormons everywhere had been issued a proclamation, signed bySmith and the elders, commanding that no official tyranny, howeverunjust, was to be resisted. "Let every soul be subject unto the higherpowers. " "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord'ssake. " But when private violence was offered the order was that the menshould fight in defence of their families. 

It seems to have been this order to fight, and the fact that the Mormonsproved themselves sturdy fighters, which alone caused any of theGentiles to enter into a compact of peace. So mad was their angeragainst a sect claiming the land as an inheritance from God and votingto a man in obedience to its leader, that the Missouri journals of theday openly taught that to kill a Mormon was no worse than to kill anIndian, and to kill an Indian was tacitly considered as meritorious askilling a wild beast. 

"I am just about as safe jogging along in one of your waggons asanywhere in this part of the country, " observed Elvira; "and if it was acraving for peace and safety we had, why did we come to Missouri at all?I feel exactly like a rabbit when the men are out trying to thin them; Inotice they get very frisky. "

There was psychological truth underlying this statement. Stimulated bythe excitements of sudden alarms, Susannah also found herself enjoyingintervals of temporary security with peculiar zest. 

They set forth again upon the country roads. Halsey had the burden ofhis message upon his spirit; wherever they found a few Mormon householdsgathered together, he preached to them the high ideals of Christianliving and the need of humility and constant prayer. Another theme hehad which he considered of equal importance; this was the interpretationof prophecy. He gave long rapt discourses upon the most obscure passagesin the books of the prophets, the Revelation of St. John, and the Bookof Mormon. These passages were found chiefly to refer to the rise ofthe Mormon Church, the iniquity of her enemies, and her glorious future. Susannah, who saw the value of his practical teachings, bitterlyregretted this use of half his opportunities. 

Only once or twice in many weeks did they come upon a Mormon householdwhose management was not such as the moralist would approve, and inthose cases before Halsey's passionate denunciation sins were confessedand repentance promised. 

So they journeyed slowly out of the September heats and oppressiveshades into the cooler and more open glories of autumn. In that part ofthe country wild flowers run riot at the approach of winter, paintingthe land in broad leagues of colour, white and gold and blue, and thetrees of the forest hang in red curtains overhead. The air was so lightand invigorating that they all felt its tonic properties. Halsey seemedeased of his burden; the child began to talk, babbling wise andwonderful speeches. Elvira was even more frivolous than was her wont, and Susannah almost forgot Halsey's dismal prophecy of martyrdom. 

About the middle of October they reached the place called Haun's Mill, where a small Mormon community was settled. Here they thought well topause, shocked by renewed rumours of warfare. A truce for the wholeregion, which had been signed by Smith and some of his elders on the oneside, and by a magistrate, by name Adam Black, for the Gentiles, hadbeen broken by Gentile mobs in several of the counties near Far West. Anumber of the saints had been brutally killed, their wives and childrendriven from their homes at the point of the bayonet. This renewedoutrage roused at last the fires of revenge, long smouldering in thebreasts of the refugees from the desolate city of Zion, who hadthemselves known the bitterness of such unmerited wrong. These firesfused religious principle and natural wrath together, till a chain wasforged which bound many strong men in a secret society, whose membersswore to fight, not only in defence, but especially in vengeance. 

It was at Haun's Mill that Halsey first heard of this society, and hewas deeply concerned. A young Mormon who had lately come to the placebelonged to it, and after one of Halsey's sermons, in which the posts ofthe Gate of Life were represented as meekness and forgiveness, thisyoung man came to the preacher by night to confess, but also tovindicate his position. 

The missionary's little party, with the exception of Elvira, who hadaccepted hospitality at a neighbouring farm, were camping in a meadownot far from a stream called Shoal Creek, which drove the mill. The logsof their evening fire were still alight. Susannah sat just within thedark opening of a low canvas-covered waggon; the unsteady flame lightfell upon her, and sometimes showed a farther interior where the childlay sleeping. Halsey was sitting at the roots of a tree, the utensils ofa simple supper at his side. The gentle horses tethered near were to beheard softly cropping the grass, and the sound of the creek came from afarther distance. Above, the poplar boughs, whose yellow foliage hadbeen thinned by the advancing season, let through the rays of thebrilliant stars. These were the sights and sounds which met the youngman's senses as he came brushing the fallen leaves with his feet. 

He leaned against the pole of the farther waggon and looked across thelow-glowing fire at the preacher and his wife. 

"Look here! I'm a Danite. Do you mean to say that the Lord's not goingto accept of me because I can't stand by and see weak men and women andchildren killed, or worse than killed, without punishing the murderers?Supposing that a hundred of Boggs' men were to come down now and put anend to you, your wife, and your child, would you have me go along withthem peaceably afterwards and pray they might be forgiven?"

"What is a Danite?" asked Susannah. 

The stranger took off his hat and answered her very respectfully. "Weare under an oath, ma'am, not to tell who belong to us, but we've boundourselves to punish them as take the blood of the helpless andinnocent. "

He seemed, as far as the light would show, a well-made youth, and hisvoice was clear and honest. 

Halsey had not spoken, and Susannah asked again, this time of herhusband, "Can it be wrong to do as this gentleman says?"

The preacher spoke slowly. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith theLord. "

"But, " said the young man eagerly, "the Scripture also says 'There's atime for wrath, ' and 'he that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall hisblood be shed. '"

Halsey rose up. It was a strong moment for him, for he had long seenthat the spirit of retaliation, following hard on the spirit of defence, was the coming curse of his beloved church, and had prayed that he mightbe the means of helping to ward it off. Here was one asking counsel whofrom the strength of his person and character might have influence amongthe avengers of blood, yet with his helpless wife and child beside himnone felt more keenly than Halsey the force of the Danite's arguments, and none knew better the multitude of Scripture prophecies that could bebrought up in support of them. In the strength of his need this man, whohad been spending the precious time of many a hardly-won audience indwelling on obscure poesies in books held sacred, now seemed to stepforth into a sudden illumination of truth just as he stepped from theshadow of the poplar bole into the light of the fire. 

"Friend, I did wrong to answer you in this matter from any part ofScripture save from the mouth of our most blessed Lord himself, for healone is the gate by which we must enter into life, and I would have youto consider most carefully his life and words, and find out if there beany promise of blessedness to those who strike back when they arestruck, or any command to punish the evil-doer, or any example for suchpunishment. But if you would be more manly and more gallant than theSaviour of the world, I tell you it must be at your own peril, for healone is the gate of that road which leads to everlasting life. "

There was a silence for some long moments. Embers in the fire broke andfell; the horses cropped the grass; a nut or twig dropped somewhereamong the adjacent trees. 

"Well, " said the young Danite reflectively, "if that's it, I guess I'llhave to take my fling first and seek salvation after; but Smith andRigdon don't only preach that sort of Gospel now; they are all for theOld Testament kind of thing, and the destroying angels in theRevelations. "

CHAPTER XI. 

So near came the rumours of war that the Mormons of Haun's Mill enteredinto a renewed compact of mutual peace with the Gentiles around them. The place was about twenty miles below the town of Far West, on the samestream of Shoal Creek. Around Far West the roads presently became verydangerous, haunted, it was said, by armed parties of bloodthirstyGentiles who lay in wait for trains of Mormon emigrants coming from theeast to the prophet's city. All travellers became alarmed; Halseyremained where he was; the people of the place accepted his pastoralservices gladly. A train of Gentile emigrants also waited at Haun's Millfor the cessation of hostilities. 

These emigrants were quiet folk and had children with them. Susannahused to go out upon sunny days with her sturdy yearling, talking to allmothers, Gentile or Mormon, who carried little children. The beauty ofthe season, the cloudless sun, gilded these few peaceful days. Susannahcompared her child with other children, marvelled at the babyintercourse he held with them, at the likes and dislikes displayed amongthese pigmy associates; and the other mothers had like sources ofinterest in these interviews. 

One among the emigrants, a dark-eyed woman of about forty years of age, was of better position and education than the others. One morning shenoticed Susannah's child very kindly, speaking of things that did notlie on the surface of life. 

"There is a seeking look in his eyes, " the lady said; "he smiles, heplays with us all, but he looks beyond for something. I have seen thatlook in the eyes of children who were in pain, but yours is at ease. "

"He has his father's eyes, " Susannah sighed. "My husband is alwayslooking for a virtue that seems to me impossible. "

Both women turned toward an open grassy space in the midst of theclustered houses where Halsey was now standing, Bible in hand, teachinga little group of children to repeat the beatitudes. Only four children, one sickly boy and three girls, were willing to stand and repeat thelesson; others had straggled away and were shouting at their play. 

Not far from where Halsey stood some fifteen of the neighbours hadgathered together to put up a new wooden house; piles of sweet-smellingdeal lay about them as they worked. 

Just then on the road from Far West a horse bearing an old man was seenstraining itself to the swiftest gallop. The old man began to shout ashe came within hearing. No one could understand what he said. Heshouted more loudly, and many women ran out of their doors to see hisarrival. Before his words were articulate a cloud of dust was seenrising round a turning of the same road, and a large company of horsemencame swiftly into view. 

The old man's voice was raised in a cry, but only the accent of terrorwas intelligible. He threw himself off his horse, brandishing his arms. Afterwards it was known that he wanted the villagers to take refuge intheir houses, but now they only stared the more at him and at the smallarmy that was approaching. 

Susannah heard a shot; then she was deafened by the sound of a volley ofmuskets. Paralysed, she stood staring down the road, unable to believethat the two or three hundred mounted men had deliberately levelledtheir muskets and fired. Then all around her she became aware of shrieksand sobs and prayers that went up to God. The brown-eyed Gentile ladywho stood beside her had fallen in a curious attitude at her feet. 

Susannah darted into the emigrants' tent and, putting down the child, dragged the lady within. She perceived to her horror that the lady wasshot; the bullet had passed through her neck. Not knowing whether shewas dead or dying, Susannah stretched her on the floor. Then she liftedher hands above her head, wrung them together in agony of nerve andthought. She remembered afterwards looking upward in the cave of thewarm tent and saying aloud "O God! O God!" many times. 

The first thing she saw was her child standing watching her; both hislittle brown fists were full of flowers. Hearing the sound of horsestrampling near, loud voices, and occasional shots, she bethought herthat the canvas of the tent was no protection for the child, and, snatching him in her arms, she ran madly out into the sunshine and intothe open war. 

A large number of the horsemen had already passed on down the road; thesounds that came from them seemed to be of oaths and laughter. A numberwere still galloping in and out among the houses; the ground was strewedwith bodies of the dead and wounded; the able-bodied, it seemed, musthave suddenly huddled within their doors. 

Susannah remembered her husband now, remembered where he had beenstanding. She forgot all else; she rushed toward the middle of thegreen, drawing back only when some of the horsemen dashed across herpath to follow their fellows. They stared at her and, as they went, called to some who were still behind them. 

One of these came on, checked his horse, and looked in Susannah's faceinsultingly. No doubt her eyes were dazed, and she looked to him like amad woman, but she remembered afterwards that the child showed angerand babbled that the horseman was a bad man. At this the rider took outhis pistol and pointed it at the child and fired and rode off laughing. 

Susannah saw the young Danite bending over her. His words were hoarseand so sorrowful that she gathered from their tone that she was in greatdistress before she understood their purport or memory awoke. "Ma'am, "he said, "I'll take you down to your own waggon by the creek. "

She found herself sitting on the ground, her child in her arms. Thechild was dead; she knew that as soon as she looked at him. There was alittle trickle of blood upon the light frock over his heart, but notmuch. 

As yet no women, only a few men, had ventured forth, and the sound ofthe enemy's horses and shouting were still in the air. Susannah rose up, folding in her arms the body of the child; the momentum of her firstintention was upon her will and muscles; she moved straight on towardthe place where she had last seen Halsey. 

The young Danite took hold of her sleeve when he perceived whither shewent. 

"'Tisn't no use, ma'am. Some of the brothers have attended to him. "

Susannah looked straight in the young man's face with perfect courage. "Is he dead?"

But the Danite had not courage for this; he turned away and put his armover his eyes; she heard him grind his teeth in dumb passion. 

Some of the men and women lying on the grass were moaning or screamingwith the pain of their injuries. The thought that Halsey might be inlike pain made Susannah imperative. "Is he dead?" she asked again inprecise repetition of tone and accent. "Is he dead?"

The Danite lifted his head. "He is quite dead, and I marked the man thatdid it, and I marked the man that did this too. " He touched reverently, not the child, but the wilting asters that were still grasped in thebaby hand. "If I'd only had a gun--but"--he ground his teeth again andmuttered, "God helping me, they shall both die. "

Susannah understood nothing then but the first part of this speech. 

By this time many of the women and children had again flocked out of thehouses. It was reported that the horsemen had been a detachment of Statemilitia, that one of them had taken the trouble to explain to a woundedman that they had received orders from Governor Boggs to exterminate theMormons. Immediately by other frightened tongues it was stated that thearmed company were halting round the turn of the road, intending toreturn and shoot again when the people had come out from shelter. Atthis the greater number made a stampede for a thicket of poplar andwillow saplings that was near the creek. The Danite still held bySusannah's sleeve. 

"Where is my husband?" she again asked. She had not moved since he lastspoke to her. 

Some men were busy laying the dead, of whom there were eighteen, on thefloor of a shed which was not far off. Susannah and the Danite movedabout together and found Halsey lying still on the green, his limbsdecently composed, his eyes for ever shut. The bearers were about tolift him, but the Danite interposed. He had an excited fancy concerningSusannah's dead and what must be done for them. He lifted Halsey easilyin both his arms and walked away, Susannah following with the deadchild. 

Without a word they went till they came to Halsey's camp. Nothing hadbeen touched since Susannah left in the morning. The Danite, rememberingthe camp as he had seen it a few evenings before, looked about him nowcuriously, and laid Halsey down on the very spot where he had stood toplead for a divine righteousness. 

It was not a time for words. Having deposited his burden, he looked toSusannah, but she had no directions to give. She sat down beside herhusband, as though preparing to remain. 

"I thought you'd like to lay them both out here, but I guess I ought toget you into the bush, ma'am. "

"I will stay here, " she said; "you had better go to help some one else. "

The cries of the wounded were still heard from the vicinity of thehouses. A crowd of the uninjured people were to be seen making their waythrough the first bushes of the thicket. They seemed to be carrying thewounded thither, for men bearing shutters, and doors upon which the sickwere stretched now started in the direction of the bush. There was needfor help, as the Danite well saw; then, too, inactivity was torture. Heleft Susannah and ran back to bear his part in the common task. 

When almost every other living soul was lost in the close thicket hecame again, approaching the camp with soft footsteps, peering anxiously. Susannah had laid the child in his father's arms. Their enemies seemedto have taken aim for the heart, for Halsey's wound was also there. Shehad so laid the child within his arms, heart to heart, that no sign ofinjury appeared. She sat by them now, sobbing her tearless sobs, stroking gently, sometimes the hair of the child, more often the thicklocks of light hair that lay above her husband's brow. She was talkingto them between her sobs in rapid phrases exactly as if they were notdead. The young Danite was sure that she had lost her wits; he leantagainst a tree confounded. 

Susannah was saying, "I wanted to keep baby, Angel, I wanted so much tokeep him, but I could not have taught him your way; there was no usetelling you that before, for you could not understand. When you told methat you would go you did not tell me you meant to take baby. You havethe best right to him, dear, he is all yours, but oh! remember--rememberthat I will be very lonely--very lonely--O Angel. " There were a fewmoments of wordless moans and sobs, but she went on clearly enough, "Iwant you to know, Angel, that I never was disappointed in you--neverdisappointed in you, dear; and about my lack of faith--it would havebeen no use to tell you before, would it?"

She took her hand from Halsey's hair and played a moment with the ringsof gold on the baby's head lying on his breast. She laid her hand uponHalsey's hands that she had clasped together above the child. "It isbetter for you to have baby with you. I could not have taught him yourthoughts. It is better, dear, isn't it?"

The earnest inflection of her voice in these interrogations brought sowild a sense of pathos to the Danite's heart that his eyes filled withtears and brimmed over, but Susannah's sobs were like a nervous gaspingof which she was scarcely conscious, and no hint of tears. 

She lightly touched the baby hand that was lying on its father'sshoulder, still grasping the blue blossoms. "See, " she sobbed, "he hasbrought his flowers to you; he always loved you best. "

There had been a great silence in the air about them, but now there wasagain the sound of firing at the distance of about a mile. The Danite'spulses leaped, but he did not, because of that, allow himself to speakor move. 

Susannah spoke again, resting her hand on Halsey's brow, "You know, dear, I don't know whether you and baby are anywhere--anywhere"; wildly, as if the appalling loneliness of its meaning had flashed upon herdulled brain, she repeated the word. 

The Danite's sympathy rose within him; he staggered forward and bentover her. "Don't, ma'am, " he said, "don't go on talking like that. I waswith my own mother when she died, when I was a little chap, and I knowhow it is, and you'd much better try to shed tears, ma'am, indeed youhad. "

Susannah lifted to him a blank face, disturbed but uncomprehending. 

He decided what to do; the thought of action restored him. He ran withall his might back to the houses, and, finding a pick and spade, cameagain. This time, more confident of himself, he had more control overSusannah. 

"We must make the grave right here, ma'am, and do you go and gather someflowers to put on it, for we must just put them two away out of sightbefore the devils come back. It's what he would want, you know. " Hepointed to Halsey and repeated the words until she understood. 

It even seemed a relief to her then to move about too, and find thatthere was something she could do, but she did not obey him blindly. While in a soft place close by he delved with might and main, displacingthe earth with incredible speed, Susannah, sobbing all the time, buttearless, went into the waggon and brought out certain things which shechose with care--a locked box, the best garments belonging to herself, her husband, and child, and the baby's toys. 

It was no neat gravedigger's work that the Danite accomplished; he hadmade a deep, large hole, but the cavity sloped at the sides so that theycould step in and out. Susannah brought her little store and lined theearth first with the garments. 

"You may want some of those things of your own, ma'am, " said the Danite. 

She paid no heed; when she had made the couch to her mind she signed tohim to lay Halsey and the child in it, which he did. She herself stoopedin the grave to clasp the dead man's hands more tightly over the littleone's form, and her last touch was to stroke Halsey's hair from off thebrow. She laid the baby playthings at Halsey's feet; she unlocked thebox and took from it all the household treasures that so far she hadsought to keep--some silver, a few small ornaments, a few books, andHalsey's Book of Mormon, in which was written their marriage and thebaby's birth. She brought a silken shawl, the one bit of finery thatremained from her girlish days. She covered her dead with it verycarefully, tucking it in as though they slept; then she moved away, wringing her hands and heaving convulsive sighs. The Danite put back theearth. 

All the grass was strewn pretty thickly with poplar leaves, gold, linedwith white, and after leaning against a tree some minutes looking awayfrom the grave, Susannah began gathering up these leaves hastily, sothat when he levelled the earth she could strew the top, hiding theplace from the curious eyes of strangers. 

"I guess, ma'am, if there's anything you would like to take with younow, we'd better go into the bush. "

"No, there is nothing, but, " she cried, "I thank you very much, and ifthere is anything that would be of use to you--"

When the Danite had first laid Halsey under the tree he had taken awhite cloth from the tent and wiped the blood from the coat, thatSusannah might not be too much shocked at the sight. He took this clothnow and tore it till the stained fragment alone remained in his hand. Hethrust it in his breast. 

"This will stand for the blood of them both, " he said. "I guess that'sall I want. " But when he had started towards the thicket he rememberedSusannah's needs, and went back for a blanket. 

The poplar saplings that bordered the creek were still holding a thingold canopy overhead, and the dogwood was glinting with scarlet. Theother members of the community had gone so far ahead that it was a longtime before, making their toilsome way, they came upon their formerneighbours. 

The fugitives had called a halt where a brook which passed through thebush offered some relief to the pain and fever of those who werewounded. One of these, a little girl, had already died by the way, andher frantic mother began to reproach Susannah, wailing that if the childhad not been saying her texts to the elder she would not have been amark for the enemy. 

The men were cutting down saplings to make place for a camp. It wastheir intention to remain, going back under the cover of night to getfood and blankets from the houses, if they were not pillaged and burned, going back in any case to bury their dead at the first streak of dawn. 

The Danite turned to Susannah. "I guess, ma'am, neither you nor I havegot any business to take us back, and there's enough of the brothershere to do the work. "

Susannah went on with the young man through hour after hour of theafternoon farther and farther into the unknown fastnesses of the wood. They left behind them the low thicket of second growth, and penetratedinto an uncleared Missouri forest. 

CHAPTER XII. 

All the powers of the young Danite were strung by excitement into thefiercest vitality, and he thought that physical fatigue was the bestmedicine for Susannah's mind. Why he had accepted the work of saving heras part of his mission of Mormon defence he did not ask himself. In him, as in many athletes, thought and action seemed one. He acted because heacted; he knew no other reason. 

In the middle of the night Susannah woke up. The stars glimmered abovethe trees; she was lying on a heap of autumn leaves wrapped in theblanket. Sitting up, she remembered slowly the events of the precedingday. 

Her movement had caused another movement at some distance. The Danite, sleeping on the alert like soldier or huntsman, was roused by the firstsound she made, and when she continued to sit up he came near in theglimmering light. She saw his dark form where he tarried a few pacesaway. 

"You're all safe, ma'am. Can't you go on sleeping?"

A watch of the night often brings to recollection some duty forgottenduring the day. "Do you know where Elvira Halsey is?"

"The young lady with the brown eyes that I have sometimes seen you with, ma'am?"

"Yes. " Then Susannah added with the weak detail of a wretched mind, "Sheisn't very young. "

"Was she any relation to you, ma'am? Were you very affectionate withher?"

Susannah explained the relationship. 

The Danite thought, "If I tell her she's there she'll think it her dutyto trapse back all the way to find her; she's that sort. " Therefore, judging that a minor grief could not make much difference, he gave it ashis opinion that Elvira was dead. At this Susannah shed tears for thefirst time, which eased his anxiety not a little. 

Susannah did not know the Danite's name; it never occurred to her to askhim any question about himself. 

At dawn they started again upon their tramp. The man knew the country, and when the sun was up he brought Susannah out of the forest to asettler's farm. She was faint now for want of food, walking again, asshe had walked last night, with vacant eyes and dull mechanical tread. 

The Danite made her sit down upon a stone near the house, and brought awoman to her who carried bread and milk. Susannah ate and drank withoutspeaking. 

"My! but she's tired, " said the farmer's wife. "It's a cruel shame tomake her walk so far; you're not a good husband to her, I'm thinking. "

Having satisfied her need, Susannah turned away dully without a word. The settler's wife offered the remainder of the bread and milk to theDanite, who regarded it with famished eyes. 

"Where's your husband?" he asked. 

"We've enough men about the place. "

"Where is your husband?"

"He's away with the militia under Lucas. "

"Then I'll not touch his food, " said the Danite. With an oath he flungthe cup and plate upon the ground. "Do you see that woman there?" Hepointed to Susannah. "I took the food for her, for she had died withoutit. Yesterday devils like your husband shot her child in her arms andher husband before her eyes, and to Almighty God I pray that when I'vegot her to some safe place I may have strength yet to shoot your husbandand your children, shoot them down like dogs, and laugh at you becauseyou don't like it. " The restrained passion of all the long precedinghours broke out. His face was ashen, his eyes burning; there was foamabout his lips as, with thick utterance, he hurled the words at her. 

The woman stepped back in dismay, but she, too, was enraged now, andcourage was the habit of the free life she led. "You are a bloodyMormon, " she cried, "and if I'd known it I'd have let your woman diebefore I'd have fed her. " She walked backwards, her voice rising higherwith passion. Unable to think connectedly, she shrieked the phrases shehad in mind. "Coming here to spread idolatry in a Christian country!Teaching superstition in a free Christian land!" She was still shriekingsome jargon about the United States being founded on the Word of God, and the divine right to exterminate all Mormons, when he, walking fast, joined Susannah. 

They had not gone much further before a large dog which the settler'swife had evidently let loose, came after them with fierce intent. TheDanite turned, and as the dog sprang, slew it with one stab of hisknife, and, leaving it bleeding upon the road, hurried Susannah into theforest. 

It was a tradition upon that farm for years afterwards that these twoMormons, after receiving charity, had made an open display of thatwanton wickedness which was habitual to them. 

Susannah and the Danite travelled on for many hours. The way was noteasy. Sometimes where the trees were thin their legs were tangledknee-deep in a plant covered with minute white feathery blossoms, looking like white swan's-down shot through with green light, thatcarpeted miles of the ground; sometimes the trees had fallen so thicklythat they had to clamber from log to log rather than walk; sometimestheir way was a bog, and they were in danger of sinking deeper than wassafe. 

Susannah asked no questions. She had heard and understood all the wordsthat had passed in the incident of the morning. She felt cowed now, afraid to think what might come next; it was enough that the Danite hadevidently some point in view. 

About four in the afternoon they left the forest and came to another andmuch larger house. The Danite advanced here with more confidence andspoke with some men who gathered at their approach. Afterwards threemen, a father and sons, came and one after the other shook handsrespectfully with Susannah. Within the house she found a motherly woman, the wife of the elder son. When Susannah's misfortunes were related toher in undertones she cast her apron over her head and groaned as withpain. 

Susannah thought that the concern of this household must arise from fearon their own account. "Are you Latter-Day Saints?" she askedmechanically. 

The eldest man, with the air of a patriarch, replied, "No, madam, we arenot Saints; the fact is we don't hold by religion of one sort oranother; we just believe in being kind to our neighbours and living, good lives; so whatsoever your belief may be it is no affair of ours, and you shall rest here for the sake of our common humanity. We'll lookafter you, madam. " He made a bow that was a queer mixture ofuncouthness in keeping with his surroundings and a recollection of somemore formal society. 

The woman of the house, taking her apron from her head, suddenlybethought her of the best things that she had to offer. Gently forcingSusannah into an elbow chair, she ran, and lifting an infant a few weeksold from its cradle, put it in Susannah's arms. 

The next night the young Danite went away. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Only the outline of passing events was reported to Susannah in her havenof peace. The elder man took her into his courtly care, and made a pointof explaining to her what he thought she needed to know. The newspaperswere sedulously kept from her, and so reticent were the other members ofthe household on the subject of their contents that her heart constantlysickened at the thought of what she was not allowed to hear. 

"You see, madam, " the old man explained, "it was Major-General Atchisonthat called out the militia in first defence of your people againstGilliam's mob. Gilliam had about three hundred men, and they started inthe north of the State. Well, Parks and Doniphan, commanding the militiacalled out by Atchison, seem to have set about fighting the mobsincerely enough. " The old man pushed back his spectacles and rubbed hishair. "Then you see, madam, that didn't please Governor Boggs. Here wasthe militia of his State shooting down his own good, honest Christianvoters who keep him in office, that's Gilliam's men, and all the mob; soBoggs gets a lot of his men in all parts of the country to write himletters saying what dreadful crimes the Mormons are committing. Theseletters will no doubt pass into history as a genuine account of yourpeople's doings. Well! well! I wouldn't shock your prejudices, but I'dlike just to point out by the way that it's all done in the name ofreligion. There's Boggs has got an old mother who spends a lot of hertime praying that the purity of the American religion may not becorrupted by the awful doctrines of Joe Smith. "

The old man shook his head and rubbed his thin gray curly hair againwith a smile of constrained patience. "You see, although I do not wishto grieve you by saying it, if we could only get rid of religion therewould be a lot of brotherly kindness in the world that so far has neverhad a chance to say 'peep' and peck its shell. Well, but here's Boggsreading his letters, and he turns pale with horror at the thought of thecorruption that has come among his good and pious people, so he writesoff to the commanders of the militia that they are to stop fighting themob, to fight against the Mormons, and only against the Mormons. So thenAtchison resigns. He points out, fairly enough, that there hasn't been asingle conviction in any lawful court against the Mormons for the crimesthey are accused of. But what of that if Boggs is Governor? So they havetaken away the arms from the Mormon company of militia, and the otherday they went up to Far West with three or four thousand men, and theygot Smith and his brother Hyrum and three of the elders to come out tothem, and they court-martialled them and ordered them all to be shot thenext day. 

"But it wasn't done, madam, " he added hastily. "General Doniphan had thepluck to stand out against it and say he would withdraw his troops, sothey put them in irons and sent them to the gaol in Richmond, and thenat the point of the bayonet they have forced the other leaders to bindthemselves to pay all the expenses of the war and to get every Mormon, man, woman, and child, out of the State, or else they are all to beshot. That is how the matter stands at present. "

"Do you incur any risk by the hospitality you give to me?" askedSusannah. She had not as yet had energy, even if she had hadinclination, to explain that the Book of Mormon was not sacred in hereyes, nor Smith a prophet. "Do you think, " she asked the old manwistfully, "that the Mormons have ever been the aggressors, that theyhave committed any of the atrocities they are accused of?"

"In some cases they have pillaged, and burned, and murdered; theywouldn't be human if some of them hadn't got fierce under the treatmentthey have been receiving; but when a man like Atchison, who has beenscouring the country and knows pretty well what has happened, prefers toresign his honourable office rather than fight against them, you may besure they are not very far in the wrong. Injuries, you know, will alwaysset a few men mad. There is your elder, Rigdon, for instance; when hegot here and heard of some of the things your folks had suffered, he upand made a wild oration on the 4th of July, and said that if any moreoutrages were committed on the Mormons, the Mormons would up andexterminate all the Gentiles in the State. But it has been well enoughseen by any one who had eyes to see that no such language was evercountenanced by the real rulers of your sect. "

When Susannah thanked the old man for his candour he drove his moralonce more. "You see, madam, I can look at things as they are because Iam not bound by any religion to look at them in any particular way. "

Susannah rose up when the old man's story was ended, and stood for someminutes looking wistfully out through the window panes upon the leaflessand storm-swept fields. They two were together in the long, scantilyfurnished living-room at the end of the long table. Her figure wasstronger, more true in its proportions, than when she had been a girl. Her hair, trained into smooth obedience, was fastened within the muslincap she had fashioned for herself, tied Quaker fashion under her chin. Her face was very white, as if, having blanched with terror in thetragedy of Haun's Mill, the life-blood had not as yet returned to it. 

At last she said simply, "I thank you, sir. "

The old man looked most approvingly at her form and at the subtlewitchery which the eagerness of imprisoned thought gave to reticentfeatures, at the depth of her blue eye. "I wish, my dear, that you couldsee your way to give up your religion and remain with us. "

"I thank you, sir, " she said again, and went back to the household tasksshe had fallen into the habit of performing. 

She was not eating the bread of dependence. In such a place, wherewoman's work is at a premium, it was easy for her to do what wasreckoned of more value than what she received. The old man had two sons. The elder and his wife were in the prime of life, having a large family;the younger son was unmarried. The farm was large and prosperous. Theone woman, even had she been less amiable, would have naturally desiredto keep Susannah as a helper; being the kindly soul she was, shereserved the more attractive tasks for her, and bade the children callher endearing names. In her blindness, in her slow recovery from utterexhaustion of mind and nerve, Susannah never thought of connecting thislong-continued kindness with the fact that the old man's younger son hadas yet no wife. 

At first Susannah had fixed her thoughts upon an immediate return to theeast, but weeks went by and she had not written to Ephraim Croom forthe money that she needed. The whole civilised world contained for herbut one friend to whom she would write. 

The Canadian farm, the remote country village of Manchester, and theMormon sect--these formed her whole experience. Her father, who hadscolded and played with her; Ephraim, who had understood her and hadbeen the authority to her heart that his parents could not be; herhusband, who had wrapped about her such close protection that she hadtottered when she thought to walk alone--these were her real world, andof them only Ephraim was left. 

It was not in her nature at any time, above all not in these strickenmonths, to desire to go out into the world alone to make for herself asphere of usefulness and a circle of companions. Hence she thought onlyof returning to Ephraim, and by his help obtaining some occupation bywhich she could live simply and within his reach. But when she thoughtmore closely of throwing herself, as it were, penniless and desolate atthe feet of this one prized friendship, doubts arose about her path. 

One thing which she had lost in the broken camp by her husband's grave, one that if she had had greater power of recollection she would not haveleft behind in that complete breaking with the past, was a packet of thefew letters which Ephraim had from time to time written to her. She didnot know whether she had thrown them into the grave with her treasure, or whether they were left a prey to fire and theft, but in her heart shehad carried them beyond the loss of their material existence. 

The first had answered her insistent question concerning the vexedcondition of the devotees of prayer. It contained no word of criticismof the Mormon creed, nothing that if read aloud could have disturbedHalsey's peace. "Perchance, " he had said, "as a medical man applies apoultice or blister to a diseased body to draw out the evil, so to thosewho pray and are too ignorant, _i. E. _ opinionated, to follow perfectlythe greatest teacher of prayer, God may apply circumstances to bring allthe evil of heart to the surface, that in this life and the future itmay the more quickly work itself away. " Susannah had so conned thispassage that she could now close her eyes and read it as written uponthe red dusk of their lids. 

The next letter had been written a year later. He described a greatchange in his life. He had gone to spend the winter in Hartford, on theConnecticut River, to be under a new physician, and had there met with apreacher called Mr. Horace Bushnell. This acquaintance was evidentlymuch to Ephraim. Susannah had made some complaint of the harshness ofthe divine counsel in which he asked her to believe; his answer was tosend her Bushnell's sermons on the suffering of God. Ephraim had added:"When you went from us, Susy, would you ever have been satisfied if wehad detained you by force? Yet that is what you ask of God. If you wereright in going, let the circumstance prove it; if we were right, let itappear by time. So says God; and his friendship has eternity to work in;so also has every human friendship. Let us wait, but in faith. " Thisending, somewhat enigmatical to her, had yet recurred to her heart sooften that she knew the words by heart. 

The next letter had been written more recently, after a long interval. At the end of this letter Ephraim had said, "I am persuaded that what weneed to help our faith is never more knowledge, but always more love. Icannot interpret this but by telling you of a fact which I feel to bethe key to a great--the greatest--truth. I know a man who believed inGod. He met a woman whom he loved, not as many love, but (I know notwhy) with all the loves of his heart, as father, as mother, as brother, friend, might love; as lover he loved her with all these loves. Afterthat he knew God with a knowledge that passed belief. He could argue nomore, but he _knew_. This I think is the sort of knowledge which guidesunerringly. " Susannah remembered, if not the words, all that thispassage contained. She had wondered at it not a little. 

Up to the time of Angel's death she had rejoiced in these letters, notdoubting that Ephraim had remained the same self-sacrificingfriend--ready out of mere but perfect kindness to befriend her to theuttermost. She had not doubted because she had not questioned. Nowdisquieting thoughts intervened, producing a new shyness. She rememberedtheir last interview, and wondered if Ephraim would feel the sameresponsibility for her if she returned destitute. Perhaps the ardour ofhis friendship had cooled. Perhaps in the last letter he had intended tosuggest to her that he thought of marriage, and this time for love, notkindness, the lady being one of his new Hartford friends. 

But no doubt the principal reason of Susannah's dalliance with time inthose first weeks of her moral freedom was the mental weakness thatsucceeds shock. Every day she thought that she would soon write thatbegging letter, until the day came when opportunity ceased. 

When the Danite left he had promised the farmer to return as soon as itwas possible to place Susannah in safety with her Mormon friends. Whenshe began to speak of leaving, her host told her this for the firsttime. 

"And what is the young man's name?" the old man asked of Susannah. Theywere in the long living-room at the mid-day meal. His sons, who wereleaving the table, waited to hear the answer; the mother, the verychildren, looked at her with interest. 

"I do not know, " said Susannah. 

There was a pause, and for the first time she was aware that there wassome sentiment in the minds of her hearers which did not appear upon thesurface. 

She went on, "I don't know why he should trouble himself to come backfor me except that--I think that he was much touched by some earnestwords my husband said to him that he did not see his way to accept, andI think also that he is zealous for the Church. "

Her surpassing wrongs had so far set her apart and made all that shesaid and did sacred. No one questioned her further. 

In the beginning of February the Danite reappeared. He came under thecover of night, but showed himself only when the household was awake. Hewas much thinner, more gaunt than before, but in frankness and quietudethe same. His first words to Susannah had an import she did not expect. 

"That young lady you mentioned to me--I said she was dead because youwere half crazy, and would have gone back to her, but I worked roundtill I found her; she got to the city of Far West right enough. "

After a while he said, "That young lady and some other of our folks havegot horses and they're going into Illinois now. Most of our folks arewalking. It's about as bad as can be, but I guess you'll have to go. We'll be safe enough, for as long as we go straight on the Gentiles arebound to let us pass. I tried to get some better sort of a way for youand her, but there ain't no way unless we would have sworn we weren'tSaints and gone pretending to be Gentiles, but even then we haven't gotthe money. "

Susannah was thrilled with excited distress. She was not prepared tomake an abrupt decision, and it appeared that if she desired to jointhis company she must go that evening or not at all. 

During the hours of the morning her mind cowered, dismayed. Should shenow renounce her husband's sect, refusing to suffer with them? She hadnot as yet fortitude to do this. Halsey's eyes, the touch of his hand, her baby's voice lisping the tenets of their faith in repetition of hisfather's solemn tones, these were sights and sounds as yet too near her. To her shocked fancy the child and his father were only gone out ofsight, but near enough to be cruelly hurt by her public perversion. And, moreover, if she should take this course she must write to Ephraim atonce, for she could not well remain where she was without definitepurpose in view. 

Susannah had sought seclusion in which to think, and the younger son ofthe house intruded himself. He was perhaps about thirty years of age, aburly man, resolute and passionate. He spoke fairly enough. The Danitehimself had said that the journey to which she was haled by her friendswas one of untold hardship, its end uncertain; he offered her all thatan honest and prosperous man could offer, but went on to urge on his ownbehalf the strength of those sentiments which he had learned toentertain for her--his admiration (Susannah sickened at the word), hislove (she shrank in fear). 

She rose up with the moan of a hunted thing. She did not pause to makeexcuses for the hunter, to consider the pioneer life that wots little ofsentiment in proportion to utility; she only saw again the grave atHaun's Mill and the white faces of her dead upturned to hers. It seemedthat this man, with the consent of his people, was urging his suit as itwere beside the very corpse of her husband. The Danite had shown Angelreverence, had shown by his every word and glance that he counted her asbelonging to the dead man whose blood he carried at his heart. 

Susannah rode out from that temporary home at nightfall upon theDanite's horse. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

It was the season of rain and sleet, of rude northerly winds. The roads, across a tract of flat fields and in among the low woods that fringedthe rivers, were heavy with mud. 

After riding half the night on a pillion behind the Danite, Susannahentered the Mormon camp. Up and down the sides of a dirty road, inwaggons, in small tents, and in the open, men, women, and children werelying huddled in family groups. How far these crowds extended she couldnot see. Watch-fires were burning here and there, and in the fields oneither side a patrol of Missouri militia were heard scoffing andshouting in the darkness. The Danite answered the challenge of one ofthese men with apparent meekness; Susannah perceived that he had gainedin self-control. When they had entered the road, along the sides ofwhich the forlorn multitude lay, they travelled for some way upon it, the Danite speaking in low tones now and then to the Mormon watchers. Atlength they came to a place where a few waggons of better descriptionwere standing and a number of horses were tied; here he lifted Susannahfrom the horse. Three of the Mormon leaders came up; they evidentlyknew her and her story. The eldest took her hand and spoke in brokentones of the crown which Halsey had won in the unseen city of God. 

These were the first words that Susannah had heard in unison withHalsey's own thoughts, and for his sake they endeared the whole wretchedMormon encampment to her. 

A woman, her head and shoulders wrapped in a shawl, sprang down from oneof the waggons, and Elvira encountered Susannah. 

"You expect me to say that I am sorry for you, " she said hurriedly; "Iwill not. It is not a time for grief. We each of us have just so muchpower of being sorry and no more, and the well has gone dry. I am gladyou have come. There are a great many things that one can yet be alittle glad for; but you must make haste to lie down, for we shall soonenough be called to the march. "

The beds shaken down on the floor of the waggon were covered withreclining women. Some of them squeezed themselves together to make theplace Elvira had vacated large enough for two. Susannah stretchedherself out, loathing with her senses the crowded bed, but with a tenderheart for her fellow-sufferers. After the long dumb weeks of her sternsorrow, after that day's revolt of injured sentiment, she felt that itwas worth while to have come here if only to have made some one else, asElvira had said, "a little glad. "

The dawn came sighing fitfully, long sighs that rose in the distantfields to the east meeting them in their pilgrimage and dying awaywestward; the dawn wept also, scattering her tears upon them in liketransient showers. 

Elvira found her own horse. The Danite had used yesterday the animal hehad provided for Susannah. 

"But what right have I to his horse?" Susannah began her questionimpetuously, but Elvira silenced her. 

"Hush! Don't let the other women know that it isn't yours. Poor things, they will begin to ask why it isn't theirs. Do you think that we areliving on bowing terms, curtseying to each other and saying, 'After you, madam, if you please'?"

Elvira was changed. Terror had at last done its work. Her prettyfeatures were drawn with anxiety; her eye glittered. 

"I have been baptized, " she said to Susannah in hard tones. "When I sawthe water red with blood I went down into it. "

Eastward, facing the gusty sobs of the winter morning, they went. Theroad was soft, and hundreds of feet treading in front of them hadkneaded water and earth together into a slippery mass. As far as couldbe seen in front and behind, the line of the pilgrimage stretched, womenand children plodding with burdens on their backs, men pushinghand-carts before them, only here and there a waggon or a group ofhorses. 

Elvira took up several children on her horse, and pointed out toSusannah a sickly woman to whom she could give a turn upon the pillionthat she herself had ridden during the night. So they began one of manyweary days. 

To the good the necessities of compassion are as strong as are thenecessities of selfishness to the wicked. Within a day or two bothSusannah and Elvira had given up their horses entirely to women who hadbeen taken ill by the way. At first they plodded arm in arm, thinkingthat merely to walk was all that their strength could endure; but therewere other women who had children to carry, women even who must pushhand-carts before them, and there were little children who sank one byone exhausted on the winter road, as lambs fall when their mothers aredriven far. 

After the march had continued for a few days there was much illness. Allclothing and bedding was wet with the winter rain, chilled and stiffwith the frosts. On the faces of many the unnatural flush and excitementof fever were seen, and other faces grew pallid, the lips blue or dark, and the eyes sunken. To all who retained the natural hue and pulses ofhealth a heavier burden was added every day because of the help theymust needs give if they would not bury too many of their comrades by thewayside. In that sad caravan souls were born into the world or freedfrom it by death almost every hour. 

Susannah was greatly struck by the meek manner of the boldest androughest of the Mormon leaders in their dealings with the parties ofMissouri militia who, with the ostensible purpose of defending Missourihomesteads from Mormon violence, drove the stricken multitude as withgoads. She had learned from her husband what the strength of truemeekness could be, the lightness of heart which commits itself to God, who judgeth righteously, the glance of love that has no reserve ofhatred, the infinite force that can afford to be gentle. Such a spirithad upheld Angel Halsey, but his widow looked in vain among the leadersof this band for a face that bespoke the same upholding. She soonperceived that there was among them a free-masonry of understanding, andthat their mildness was assumed to serve the temporary purpose. By manya prayer she heard breathed, which was in truth, though not in form, acurse, she knew that in the souls of Halsey's successors there was noforgiveness, yet her heart went out in sympathy to men who weresacrificing their own sense of honour, holding in check their mostdelicious impulses of revenge, for the sake of being worthy shepherds tothe weak. 

"Do you love them the less because they are not angels?" asked Elvira. "Have you forgiven?"

Susannah shuddered at the intensity of the hard low tones, the passionin the word "love, " the sneer in the word "forgive. " Yet she knew thatthe rage against injustice which in youth had driven her forth upon thisjourney had, since the death of her child, changed into such fiercehatred of the persecutors that she could, except for very fear ofherself, have taken upon her own soul the Danite's vow. In these daysthe pain of bodily suffering or heart-felt grief was as nothing comparedwith her agony when at times waves of this hatred passed over her heart. 

The two friends were walking together, pushing before them a small cartin which, on the top of the bundles of household goods, a wretched womanand her newborn child were lying, covered under a scanty tarpauling fromthe driving sleet. The mud splashed beneath their feet; Susannah hadlittle breath or strength for speech. Elvira, more slightly made, inevery way more fragile, had seemed to develop, with every new phase ofsuffering, more strength of muscle and hatred and love. 

They passed now two of the leaders. It was the custom for a certainnumber of these men to go forward and station themselves in pairs atintervals upon the road, cheering each group as it passed them, notingwith careful eyes if any ill could be remedied by change of posture orexchange of burdens. One of them now, seeing the work to which Susannahhad set herself, interfered. He was about sixty years of age, coarse inappearance, an elder whose wife and family Susannah knew by reputation. He and his fellows called a halt, looking for some man who might pushthe cart, but there was none within sight who was not alreadyoverburdened, nor was there a waggon that was not already overfilledwith the sick and exhausted. The elder, whose name happened to beDarling, found in this particular instance reason to swerve from hisposition of guard. He left the post in charge of his fellow and pushedthe cart. It was a habit with many of these leaders to seek to lightenthe way by jocularities, and Susannah had before observed that, whetherthe jests arose with ease or effort from the heavy hearts of those whomade them, a large proportion of the people were evidently cheeredthereby. She could put aside her own tastes for the public good; shecould even excuse when this rough comfort was offered to herself. Darling, labouring behind the cart, made light of the service herendered. 

He said first that the newborn babe must be called after him, and whenhe learned its sex he gave permission to the ladies to decide betweenthem which should share this honour. 

"Shall it be 'darling Susannah'?" he asked, making gentle his tone as headdressed the stately widow, "or shall it be 'Elvira darling'?" Thistime he turned his head with a broader smile toward Elvira's sharplittle features. 

Susannah felt that her hypersensitive nerves could almost have calledhis smile a leer; but she looked at the man's broad face, whose linestold of no resources of thought, no great natural capacity for heroism, and yet were furrowed by the sharpness of this persecution. The facewould have been fat had it not been half-starved. It was pale now underthe ill-kempt hair, and the set purpose of helpfulness was stamped uponit. She took back the word "leer" out of mere respect. Darling had givenaway his shoes; he was walking barefoot; he had given away coat and vestalso, and the rotund lines of his figure were unpleasantly obvious underthe wet shirt, and yet Susannah knew and bowed to the fact that somesick man or little child was wrapped in the garments that were gone. 

But Elvira was expressing with hysterical warmth the same sentiments. 

"I guess I'll feel it an honour to have my name joined with yours. Ihaven't got the length of taking off my shoes yet. "

Darling began to sing one of the inspiriting Mormon hymns. 

 "When Joseph to Cumorah came. "

"Poor Joe!" Elvira spoke to the elder in a confidential whisper, "whenhe cheated over the bank I thought some fiend had put a ring in hisnose, and was leading him out to dance, and that I should be able to sitand laugh. Now he's lying upon straw in the gaol. What will they do tohim if they lynch him?"

"Tear him limb from limb, " whispered Darling, also under his breath. Hewas probably shrewd enough to know the force of Smith's suffering instimulating the piety of the faithful, but truth, and grief concerningthe truth, were in his words also. He sighed a big sincere sigh, andrepeated sadly, "Tear him limb from limb, or burn him to death by a slowfire. " Such atrocities, as practised upon criminal negroes, were notunknown in the locality, which gave the elder's words a graphic power, but Elvira's answer was wholly unexpected. 

"How droll!" she returned. 

The elder was annoyed. He had not refined susceptibilities which soughtimmediate relief from the dreadful pictures he had suggested, nor did heat all comprehend that her rippling smile was hysterical. "I don't seeanything droll about it, sister, " he said sulkily. 

"Don't you? Now, it all seems to me very droll--you splashing alongthere barefoot, why" (she drew back a little to get the better view, laughing excitedly), "you've no idea how ridiculous you look; and Mrs. Halsey stalking along like a dignified ghost, afraid that you and I willkiss one another if we take to whispering, and this woman dying herewith her head resting on a sack of potatoes, and the impudent littleperson you've just christened intruding herself upon the world only togo out of it again, and all these fine people in Missouri rubbing theirhands and thinking they have done such a noble deed. I think, " sheadded, laughing more loudly, "that they are the drollest part of itall. "

"This nation will find that there's a sequel to it that they won't laughat. " These words of Darling came from some region underneath that of hisordinary conversation, as a man takes a dagger from under his cloak andlets it flash ere he hides it again. "The government of these UnitedStates that has laughed at our sufferings will rue the day. "

"Even your saying that is very droll, but I love you for it. " Elviralifted both her hands as if testifying to her own sincerity. "I love youfor it. "

The elder thought it needful here to be again jocose. "Oh, come now, Iam married. "

Elvira did not feel herself insulted. "These United States, " she cried, "they cackle over the word 'freedom' like so many hens that have each ofthem laid an egg and go strutting and boasting while the housewifeempties their nests. The housewife represents the natural course ofevents, and in this case her name is 'Mrs. Mobocracy. '"

At other times, after a long period of silence, Elvira would burst forthin excited soliloquy audible to Susannah and others about her. On thelast day when they were descending the hills to the Mississippi herincreasing excitement culminated in a greater demonstration. The sun wasshining, and a clear frost had hardened the roads. Elvira broke forththus--

"It is Joe Smith who is conducting this march. We say that he is lyingin gaol, " she laughed. "In gaol is he? Have they got him safe? But itwas he who taught all these men to work together, one under the other, and none of them kicking; and it was he who taught these women andchildren to do as they are bid--a wonderful thing that in the land ofthe free. It was he who taught one and all of us to be kind to eachother, to the poor and the sick and the young, to the very beasts. Doyou remember that when they caught our prophet at Hiram and dragged himout to be beaten and insulted, they had first to take from his arms asick motherless baby that he was sitting up all night to nurse? Do youremember how he gave commandment about the animals? how he said that anyman striking a beast in anger was thrown so far back on his road toheaven?" She paused when she had thrown out this question, and the menand women within hearing answered in broken chorus, "Yes, blessed be theLord; we do remember. "

"And who was it that taught us to give up the filthy Gentile habits ofstrong drink and tobacco?" (Again in the pause the chorus ofthanksgiving to Heaven was heard. ) "It was Joe Smith, " Elvira cried moreloudly. "And when the Gentiles thought that we would be scattered andseparated and ruined, his spirit has gone like a banner before us. Twice they have taken our lands that we bought with our own money andcleared with our own hands, and the houses that we have built, and castus out destitute, but we are not destroyed. "

The enthusiasm of the crowd that now pressed upon her went like wine toher head; her cheeks flamed, her eyes brightened, and she lifted hersmall hands in fantastic gesture and danced, crying, "We are cast down, but not destroyed, because God Almighty has given to us a prophet, and agreat prophet. "

And the people around her answered again, "Blessed be the name of theLord. "

It was whispered about the camp that the spirit of prophecy had fallenupon Elvira Halsey. 

On the afternoon of that day they saw the ice that floated in largecakes on the breast of the Mississippi flash back the sunbeams to theirstraining eyes. The sight of the limits of the hostile State from whichthey were flying was a great joy to every one of them. Susannah felt herheart leap; Elvira, with the growing tendency to cling to her which shehad displayed since their last meeting, cast her arms around her andsobbed for joy. 

After this blessed glimpse of the river they went down through therecesses of a low forest, the frost and the sunshine still inspiritingthem. As they went, the melody of a hymn was taken up from one end ofthe caravan to the other by all those well enough to join in the song. It was a swinging triumphant air, and Susannah found herself upliftedfor the first time since the days of her baptism upon the party spiritof the sect, and singing with them, although she could only catch thewords of the refrain often repeated, "Missouri, In her lawless fury, Without judge or jury, Drove the Saints and spilt their blood. "

Again the mind of Joseph Smith had overmastered Susannah's mind. AsElvira had said, he, lying in a gaol far away, enduring hardship, imminent danger of torturing death, was by his spirit animating thismotley crowd, and now at last again his will broke down the barriers ofreason that Susannah had raised and fortified even against the love ofher child and the long reverence she had yielded to her husband. Thetrue secret of human leadership is, perhaps, known only to the Divinemind, perhaps also to the Satanic. It would certainly seem that the menwho chance upon the power and wield it, have often little understandingof the law by which they work, and their critics less. 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Mississippi was filled with large cakes of floating ice. Anothercompany which had gone out from Far West some weeks before was stillencamped on the Missouri banks of the river. Yet other companies fromFar West came up before the main body of the Saints with which Susannahhad travelled was able to cross. The surrounding woods were cut down tomake shanties; the surrounding country was scoured for food. In theintervening weeks, while they lay encamped on the banks, the last enemyto be vanquished in that region, the malarial fever, grappled with thesect and dealt deadly wounds. Illinois, shocked by the cruelty of hersister State, held out kind hands and fed the fugitives to some extent, and when April came, helped them to cross the river. 

Elvira had been ill in one of the women's sheds, now shrieking in hotdelirium, now shaken with ague as if by a strong beast that worried itsprey. When they at last crossed the river to the city of Quincy, Susannah was established with her charge, the one legacy of relationshipHalsey had left her, in a meagre home with some of the Saints whoalready lived there. 

Within a few days Susannah went to the tithing office, which had beenswiftly established for the relief of the destitute Saints, and askedfor paper on which she could write a letter. It was her first chance, since leaving her last asylum, of writing the proposed letter to EphraimCroom. Elder Darling was officiating. She fancied that he looked at herwith rude curiosity. 

Until this moment she had presented so sad an exterior, had seemed soindifferent to all the ills of their common lot, that Darling and theother men who had dealings with her had stood not a little in awe. Asoutward physical details of suffering always appeal more largely tocommon sympathy than inward grief, the manner of her loss had set atemporary crown upon her head, to which the elders had knelt, refusingto admonish her because she took no part in their public services, orbecause, except for attention to the sick, she did not give much sign ofsocial comradeship. 

Now when she asked for the paper, Darling felt that the ice wasbeginning to break, and gave what seemed to him genial encouragement. 

"First time that you've asked for anything but daily rations, SisterHalsey; glad to see you plucking up heart. The living God giveth us allthings richly to enjoy. " He repeated the last words in an unctuousdrawl while he was looking for the paper, "richly to--enjoy. Well now, Iwas thinking we had some with a black border on it, but you're more thanwelcome to such as there is. "

The stores indeed were scanty enough; food, cloth, household utensils, alittle stationery, a large pile of devotional books, were arranged inmeagre order in the shed used as a warehouse. Darling had as yetscarcely respectable clothes to wear, but Susannah was astonished onlyat the energy that had in a few days collected so much, at the order andpatient kindliness which ruled in this poverty-stricken administration. Already those who could work paid into the common store, and those whohad lost all had but to state their needs to have them supplied as wellas might be. 

"One, two, three--will three sheets be enough, Sister Halsey? You'vebeen hearing, I suppose, that Mr. Smith is going to be moved to the townof Boome, and that he is going to be allowed to get his letters now?He'd be real cheered to hear from you, although"--he added this withdecent haste--"it will be a great grief to him to hear of your loss!"

"Is he well?" she asked. 

"The State authorities are in a fine to-do about him, I suppose youknow, sister, for they can't find a single charge to bring him to trialon. You bet the trial would have been on long ago if they'd had asingle leg to stand on. Anything else that I can serve you with to-day?We've got some new women's shawls and hats come in. Won't you just stephere and have a look at them? No? Well, next time; but there ain't oneof our women as doesn't want one of them new bonnets. "

Susannah went out into the spring on the outskirts of the town. Thebirds were singing; everywhere the dandelions swelled out their happytufted breasts to the sunshine; even a long worm that she noticedcrawling lazily in the heat spoke to her of enjoyment of some sort. Herown heart leaped, and she thought it was in answer to the spring. Sheforgot the dire fates with which she had been grappling, forgot to hateand to grieve. 

In the small wooden room that she shared with Elvira, while the invalidslept, she wrote to Ephraim, telling him all that had befallen her. Sheconfessed to Ephraim the passion of hatred which had long tormented her, but she added, "To-day I do not feel it; to-day, with the sweet voicesof the birds everywhere in my ears, I feel that if I could be beside youagain you could teach me to forgive as my husband forgave, for I do knowto-day that in forgiveness alone is the true triumph, the only healing. I am more one with my husband's sect now than I ever was in heart andhope. I long to see it triumphant; I long to see its enemies abashed;but I will leave this people and come back to you, if you will have me, for with regard to their religious faith my life with them is a lie. "

The writing took so long that when she carried the letter again to thetithing office to be stamped and sent, the post-bag of that day hadalready gone. Later, when the office was closed to the public and ElderDarling was alone, he took up the letter which Susannah had brought andlooked at it curiously. His eyes had caught the address. He was not surethat he would have put it in the bag even if it had been in time, andnow it was clearly his duty to consider. His was a mind in which therewas no place for platonic friendship, and Susannah was obviously a mostdesirable piece of property to the struggling Church. The Church hadprovided the paper for this letter, must needs provide the stamp; he wasofficially responsible to the Church. The elder had been an honest manaccording to the average notions of honesty until within the last weeks, when stress of circumstance had made him reconsider, not for himself butfor others, more than one rule of life, and obtain larger latitude. Thebuilding up of the Church in her present sore strait was surely an endto override small scruples. He acted now as an official, as a priest, when, after a good many painful qualms of conscience, he opened theletter. After having read its contents, he became convinced that it wasfor the good of Susannah's own soul that it should not go. 

The ground about Quincy had been drained; the town was comparativelyhealthy; in a few days more some two thousand of the fugitives feltagain the pulse of life in their veins. Then they looked abroad andclasped every man the hand of his neighbour, and said "Thanks be toGod, " and even embraced one another in the joy of relief. History oftenshows how exuberant is the joy of human nature at escape, and that theimpulse of joy is almost one with the impulse of affection. At theabatement of the London plague we see Britons kiss each other in thestreets, and at the relief of besieged towns, in our own day, staidpersons have caressed one another, unmindful of what they did. So it wasnow with the members of this driven sect. The spirit of joy and a closerbond of affection went infectiously through the gathering Church. Uponthe first Sunday they met together in the open air, and sang words thatthey verily believed had been written in particular prophecy forthemselves at this very hour. 

 "If it had not been the Lord that was on our side. "

The psalm rose from every throat with the swelling tide of joy. 

 "If it had not been the Lord that was on our side when men rose up against us. "

Susannah, advancing, a little belated, to the rural preaching which washeld in a dip of the plain, heard the lusty chant of irrepressiblegladness rising to the blue heavens, and quickened her steps. In spiteof herself she was carried into song by the enthusiasm which seemed todart like a flame from the assembled multitude and enveloped her. 

 "Blessed be the Lord who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. "

While she was exalted by the song she saw the face of her friend theDanite for the first time since the night on which they had ridden sofar together. He was standing now upon the outskirts of the crowd as onewho had newly come from a solitary journey. When he met Susannah's eyehis solitary look passed into one of lofty and intense comradeship. Heran to her and embraced her, and emptied an inner pocket of a purse ofmoney which he thrust eagerly into her possession. 

"I have killed one of them, " he said, speaking eagerly, as a child tellsof some exploit. "His pockets were fat with money, and it is yours. "

"See!" He took the fragment of linen upon which the stain of Halsey'sblood had turned dark with time, and showed her a new and brighter stainupon its edges. 

All around them were men and women, who now, for the first time sincethe hour of some terrible parting, spied kindred or comrades. By acommon impulse these moved toward one another, and there was aninterlude in the service for sobs of joy and frantic embracings, andmany men and women clasped one another who could claim no kindred, andnone forbade, for tears of mutual love were in all eyes. 

After that, in the streets or in chance meetings in the houses, theremembrance of this festival of rapturous comradeship gave a newstandard to the manners of private life. The Saints had, as it were, passed from death unto life; former things had passed away; the praisesof God were ever upon their lips; they entered with joy into a kingdomof love which they doubted not God had ordained for his elect; many acommand of Scripture became illumined with a new practical meaning. "Greet _all_ the brethren with a holy kiss. " "Greet ye one another witha kiss of charity. "

Susannah was not much abroad, but she saw the new customs inaugurated. Believing that they must be transient, knowing, too, that the fierceundercurrent that they expressed must have outlet, and was not of thatrange of emotions which had to do with the common relationships of life, she felt no shock of offended sentiment. But in a short space of time, as Elvira grew better, Susannah perceived that the experimental natureof the new life was a dissipation to weaker minds. This grieved herbecause of the sacred memory of her husband's efforts for these people, and because, attuned by party spirit, she entertained a nervouspersonal desire that they should acquit themselves well. Just here shefound occupation; she gathered the young girls about her in a temporaryschool, and set herself to soothe and calm the excitement of the women. The work was intended to last but a few weeks, until Ephraim's answercame. 

To the unspeakable joy of his followers, Joseph Smith appeared suddenlyin Quincy. It appeared to be true, as Darling said, that the Missouriauthorities could in fact find no charge on which to try him. 

Smith, with his brother Hyrum and their fellows, had suffered severely, but later their confinement had been more easy, and the news of thetriumphant gathering of his people, together with the excitement of theescape, had induced in Smith a mood which spurned past failures with afoot that sped to a new goal. The acclamation, the sincere and touchingjoy, with which Smith was received by men and women and children, wereenough to raise any man in his own esteem, and to set free the ambitionwhich had been perhaps drooping in confinement. 

Smith had not been in Quincy twenty-four hours before he mastered thesituation there in all its details. He promptly sent out a decreeagainst the new doctrine of what he called "lax manners. " He preached agreat sermon in the open air that night. "A man shall kiss his own wifeand daughters and no other women, " said Smith. The elders who hadpreached from St. Paul's texts on the subject were accused of error andcalled upon to recant. Smith commanded that the women should work andthe children should study, and he publicly pronounced Susannah to be afitting model for the women and a fitting teacher for the young. Susannah had not as yet met Smith face to face when she found herselfmade, as it were, an object of licensed admiration. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

It was that same evening, after Smith's commendation of Susannah, thatDarling decided to lay the destruction of her letter before the prophet, hoping for approval. 

Smith was looking over Darling's accounts in the tithing office, givingvoluminous and minute directions. The May night had closed in. The menwere in a corner of the large shed in which the stores were kept, acorner fenced off for an office by a low wooden partition. The candleflickered on the table between them. 

The business side of Smith's soul was uppermost. He had power to keep inmind a huge number of details, and to classify them, and he estimatedthe relative importance of the classes as no other man would haveestimated it. 

Darling interrupted before Smith's interest in business began to wane. He prefaced his communication concerning Susannah by speaking of themuch shepherding needed by the sheep. Some, he said, had done worse thanbe lax in manners; some had presumed to have revelations; some haddoubted the faith. 

Here Darling paused, feeling sure of rousing Smith to the mood hedesired. 

At the mention of revelations Smith's soul took a turn, like a ball onits axis; the plain speech that he had been using about business andstores and accounts changed into phraseology of a Scriptural cast, andthe shrewd glance of his blue eye into a more distraught and distantlook. Heretofore, as Darling well knew, heresy had been a greater evilin his eyes than any other; but Smith had come now out of long months ofprison; days and nights in which a horrible death had faced him closelyhad not passed over this particular soul of his dreams without mouldingit. It is noticed by all his historians that after this period he spokelittle "by revelation, " in comparison with his former full habit in thisrespect. At Darling's abrupt speech he sighed heavily. He looked, not atDarling as before, but at some vague object beyond him. 

"There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy, " he saidwearily, and then, gathering himself up with more pompous unction, heasked of the surprised Darling, "Who art thou that judgest another?"

Darling had grown fatter since he came to Quincy; the lines of haggardcare were still upon his face, but were modified by dimples of goodcheer. Much taken aback by the unexpected rebuff, he rubbed his head. 

"But, Mr. Smith, if they are all going to be allowed to think whateverthey like--"

The obvious difficulty of church government under these conditionsconfronted the nobler impulse of humility in the visionary's mind. "Whenhave I said, Brother Darling, that they all should think what they like?But, behold, I say unto thee, it is not with the Lord to save with manyor with few, but by whom he will send. "

This was a little vague as to grammar and as to sense, but Darling hadnot the ability to criticise. He only perceived that to securecommendation he must be tactful in the setting forth of his act. 

"It was in the case of Sister Susannah Halsey--" he began againapologetically. 

A more eager look came into Smith's eyes; still a third phase of hischaracter there was, the soul of his personal affections, and this beganto merge now with his religious self. "Hath she prophesied? Hath anyrevelation been granted to her?"

If Darling had not understood the prophetical vein, he did understand acertain vibration in this tone. "Ha!" thought he, "if the prophet ain'ta bit soft on her himself I'm out. " He had lowered his eyes, and now hesaid evasively, "It is our sister Elvira on whom the spirit of prophecyhas fallen; you will have heard how she gave praise concerning youbefore the Saints upon the road and was moved to dance before the Lord. "

Smith saw through the evasion, but by shrewd reading of thesanctimonious face, saw also the inward suspicion as clearly as ifDarling had spoken it. His tone and manner betrayed him no more. 

"The head of our sister Elvira is not always set firmly on hershoulders, " he remarked, "but I am glad if the Lord has given hergrace. "

"I've been hoping that he'd give grace to our sister Susannah, for she'sbeen writing a letter to say as how she was without faith and wanting toleave us. "

Smith answered him now only with a cool silence that puzzled his coarserunderstanding. 

"'Twas in our first days here, when a good many of the women wereflighty, and Elvira Halsey, she was ill enough to have worked thepatience out of any one as they work the milk out of butter, and SisterSusannah came with a letter. She gave it to me unsealed. "

"Was she without wax to seal it?" interrupted Smith in a casual tone. Darling could not know that the thought of such poverty wrung Smith'sheart. 

"Waal, I dunno" (which was a lie). "Mebbe she had no wax--I didn't thinkof that, but anyhow she gave me the letter. 'Twas too late for the mail;'twas too heavy for one stamp. An' I didn't like to tell her, poorthing, that we'd mighty little to spend on stamps. So after she'd gone Ijust had a look to see who it was to. "

"The address would be on the outside?" Smith rose, hat in hand, as if todepart, but fixed his eyes on the candle till Darling should have done. 

"The name gave me very little hint as to whether the matter was worththe two stamps, so I just had a glance inside. Thought it might be but aline asking money of her friends, which, under the sad circumstances, ofcourse I knew you'd rather the Church would supply. "

This drew the first spark of the approval he was expecting. "Certainly, certainly, the widows and the orphans of those who have perished for thetruth must ever be our most tender care. "

"Exactly so, prophet; I knew that would be your opinion; so when I sawthat our sister had felt drove to asking for money from some fellow--Iguess there must have been some sweethearting between him and her beforeshe married Halsey. She said in this letter that she'd go to him if he'dsend her cash. She said as how she thought the religion of theLatter-Day Saints was a lie; but of course I could see it was not herright judgment, that she was awful lonesome. "

"It was taking a great liberty, Mr. Darling. " Smith tapped his stickupon the floor. He was far more angry than he showed, for policy hadlaid a soft hand of reminder on his shoulder. "Our sister, Mrs. Halsey, is not--" he coughed slightly, and sought by prophetical phrases toexplain that Susannah was not upon the level of Darling and hiskind--"is not, as it would be said in the Scriptures, among those whodeck themselves with crisping pins or are busybodies, but she is as thatlady to whom John wrote (and the letter is preserved unto theedification of the Church unto this day); for it was revealed unto me inthe beginning that she was the elect sister, and to sit as one whojudges--as one who judges Israel. " He was just going to add in the flowof his phrases "upon twelve thrones, " but the words died because even heperceived the lack of sense. 

Darling grew testy. "Waal, I dunno, but it seems to me that if she'dgone off by now to be Mrs. Ephraim Croom somewheres in the East therewouldn't be much more elect sister about her. "

"The gentleman whose name you have just been mentioning, Mr. Darling, isthe lady's uncle. I was reared alongside them, and I know. " He knew thathe fibbed between uncle and cousin, but the slip was so slight and theend so worthy--to silence Darling. 

"'Twas no uncle that she wrote that 'ere letter to, " said Darling hotly. He stuck out his legs and leant back in his chair, the picture ofoffence. 

"You are mistaken concerning the meaning of the letter, Brother Darling, and it appears to me that in casting your eyes upon it you have gonebeyond what is written concerning the duty of an elder; but as to yourduty in destroying it--considering that our sister asked for money, which it is our duty and privilege to supply--But I promised Emmar to beback soon. I will consult the Lord, Brother Darling, and have a wordwith you in the morning. "

Smith tramped with dignity over the long wooden floor of the darkenedshed and let himself out with decisive clatter of the latch. 

To his right lay the wooden town with twinkling lights, to his left theblack prairie, and above the crystal vast a moonless night, so clearthat the upward glance almost saw the perspective between nearer andfarther stars innumerable. 

This man was at all times possessed with the sense of otherness, senseof a presence around and above. He was no sooner beneath the stars thanhe hung his head as if some one saw him. With shame and pain written inthe attitude of his hulking figure, he skulked out into the blackfields. 

Later that night, a lad, not of the Mormon brotherhood, making his wayhome in the dark to the town of Quincy, a little afraid of the dark, aslads are apt to be, was terrified by hearing a voice in the darkness, bydimly descrying a man's figure prostrate upon the ground. The lad shrankback to a recess of the snake fence. There, trembling, he listened. 

The voice in the hoarse whisper of intensity repeated, "Give me--thiswoman--give--give. " The breathing, like command rather than prayer, setthe words grating on the air again and again. "This woman--thiswoman--give! give! give!"

The cause of the lad's terror was a strange conviction that the writhingcreature on the earth was certainly conversing with something not ofearth, whether God, or angel, or devil he did not ask. He wasencompassed by the dreadful belief that the other saw and heard what hecould not. 

The prostrate man clenched his fists and struck the black ground onwhich he lay. There was an intense silence, and then again the gratingbreath of a hoarse throat that lay among the grass blades babbled fortha multitude of confessions and fiercely-worded supplications which thelittle lad could neither understand nor remember. 

There was a sudden change of attitude and voice. The lad saw that theman on the grass sat up, and as if he had received an answer, spoke inreply, not now in wailing supplication, but in quick whispered argument. The lad cowered with a fresh thrill of ghostly terror which burned themad words into his memory. 

"The loss would be to thee of the fairest of thine handmaids, and to herof her own soul, and to me--" but here the words of irritable contentionfailed in deep choking sobs. Then, to the lad's perfect dismay, theblack figure bounded to its feet and the arms were flung about in thedarkness as if wrestling with an unseen enemy. Now, being desperate, thelad darted forth from his nook; passing in tip-toe rush at the back ofthis struggling figure, he sped home in his gust of fear, and, with thefantastic secrecy of youth, did not tell what he had heard and seen tillyears had come and gone. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The May morning was wreathing itself with opening flowers to meet thefirst hour of sunlight when Susannah was startled by hearing that theprophet inquired for her. There was in the house where she lived anempty chamber, unfurnished because of poverty; it was in this that theprophet, who demanded a private audience, awaited her. 

So vexed was she at the public advertisement which he had made of her, that she forgot the bereavement she had suffered since she last saw him;but when she looked up she saw that Smith's face wore signs of emotionthat he was not trying to conceal. 

At first he made an attempt at some unctuous form of address, an effortat formality, a mechanical tribute to habit. Failing to finish hisphrase, he stood before her, not as the lauded leader, not as theinteresting martyr, but claiming recognition merely as a man, a large, coarse man feeling his own coarseness in her presence, a sinful manfeeling his own sinfulness, but at the same time a man with a warmheart, which was now so beating with emotions of shame and pity and gladrecognition that at first he could not speak, could not raise his eyesto hers until the warmth of his feeling rid him of self-consciousness. 

Susannah had not expected to awake this emotion. She desired nothingless than condolence; and yet she was touched by seeing his hugestrength broken down for the moment by her appearing. When he spoke hisvoice was hoarse. 

"I--I told him--it was my earnest command to him not to go where therewas danger. "

Halsey's name was not spoken, but all through that interview Smithappeared to be haunted by his presence. "He was the best man amongstus, " he said. 

"My husband is gone. " Susannah hoped by the reticence of her tone toward off further excess of sympathy. "I am no longer bound to yourChurch, Mr. Smith. I should not be honest if I did not tell you that Ihold myself free. "

He faced her frankly, but with a glance of searching pain. "It must seema rather poor trade I've chosen if there ain't no truth in it. "

"But I did not accuse you of not believing it, Mr. Smith. "

"Do you think I do?"

She remembered the day that he had first shown her his peep-stone withsimple, childlike importance. How young they had both been! The sunshineon the hill, the voice of the golden woodpecker, the scent of the fallenbeech leaves, came back to her. A decade of terrible years had passedover them both, and he stood seeking her faith just as simply. 

"I have tried very hard to understand you, Mr. Smith, but I do not. Ithink you must believe most of what you claim for yourself, if not all. If you had made your story up for the love of power you wouldn't alwaysbe wanting the people to get a better education; you would, as they sayof the Roman Catholic priests, want to keep the people ignorant. "

"Go on, " he said. She found that he was looking at her with intensesadness, but there was not a shadow of evasion in the eager look thatmet her steadily. 

She went on, looking gravely into his face. "I do not believe that yourstory was false, Mr. Smith, but it seems to me that you must suspect nowthat your visions and the gold plates were hallucination, not reality. "She paused, eager question in tone and look, but the question was of thehead, not of the heart. 

He knew that; he knew that it did not matter greatly to this thoughtfuland beautiful woman whether he had sunk to the deepest degradation ornot. Suddenly he answered her, but not as one who stood at her judgmentbar. 

"Where is your heart? Didn't you see how that man Angel--angel of purityif ever one walked in human form--kissed every day the ground youwalked upon? And you did not love him. The child--you thought you caredfor the child: I tell you if I had had a child like that, with eyes likethe stars and a little mind so untainted, I had laid myself down on hisgrave and died there. There's Emmar and me, we'd be in more trouble ifyou lost one of your pretty fingers than you would have been in if theyhad taken and killed us over there in Missouri. " He added, "If you wereanother woman, and had not the power to do more than just have a littleshallow caring for one and another, where would be your sin?"

Something that she had dimly suspected of herself flashed into apparenttruth. Ephraim, too, had perhaps intended to tell her this when he hadsaid that love, not knowledge, was needed. She had not loved Halsey andhis child as she might have loved. 

Susannah had always recognised a certain bigness in Smith's characterbecause of the power he had of giving himself to man, woman, and child;now she felt her own inferiority. Was she to stand babbling to him abouthallucinations and gold plates? The man in him had flashed out at her, and because she was not without the heart whose whereabouts he haddemanded, the flash awakened an answering fire. Her cheeks flushed, notwith self-consciousness, but with the slow gathering of heart-strickentears. 

"And you, " she said slowly, "you have poured out blood and soul for usall freely, but why?" The imperious need of truth awoke again. "Why haveyou let yourself be beaten and shot at and imprisoned and horriblythreatened, to lead us all to this new Zion, wherever it may be?" Sherepeated the question. "If it was ambition, why did you hold to it whenthere did not seem to be the slightest chance that your sect couldsurvive, or that you would escape death?"

She was asking with more heart in her tone now that she had been made torealise what she had of respect and friendship for this man. 

"I hain't got the courage most people think I have, " he replied sadly;"I am scared enough; I am scared sometimes of the very water I go intoto baptize in, let alone men that want to murder me; but I am moreafraid to go against my revelations, for I know if I went against themthere would be nothing for me but the pit and eternal fire. I don't saythat it would be the same for any of you. I used to preach that itwould, but in prison, when I thought of my folks standing up to bekilled, I thought perhaps I had gone beyond what was told me inpreaching that way; but as for me, I've seen and I've heard. "

He did not turn or take restless steps upon the floor. It would havebeen a relief to her if he had moved; but he remained just where hefirst stood, strong enough to have this colloquy over withoutrestlessness. 

"I am no saint, " he said, "as you know very well, and there's a lot ofthings I've done, thinking that my revelations told me, which I don'tknow whether they told me or not, for in prison I saw that the thingswere bad things, like that mess of the bank, and running away as I did. I guess I could not have been living right, and the devil gulled me. Butthat hain't got nothing to do with the times I know that the Lord spoke. You don't believe it was the Lord at all. Well, then, who was it? Forit's the same as has told me not to do the lots of wicked things I mighthave done and didn't. As to them plates, I told you before I didn't havethem as much in my hands as I said I did. I got wrong a bit there too, maybe, but it isn't easy to keep quite straight between the thing yousee and the words you say it in, when you are trying to talk to peopleabout what they don't understand. It isn't easy to do just only what isperfectly right about anything at any time, at least, if it is to you, it isn't to me; but I often thought I was born worse than most people. "

"The men who were your witnesses as to the reality of the plates areapostate, " she said gently. 

"They are apostate, " he said gloomily, "and why? Because I would not letthem live upon the Lord's tithes without labouring as we all laboured. "

He spoke again after a moment. "The Gentiles have spread abroad a storyabout one Solomon Spalding, who they say wrote the Book of Mormon, whichRigdon stole, but you know--you who have been with us from thebeginning--that neither I nor your husband nor any one of us saw Rigdonuntil we came to Kirtland, and if his word is to be believed he neversaw this Spalding or his book. "

She made an impatient movement of her head. "I know, " she said, "thatthere is no truth in that story. " She moved a little away from him; shewas becoming oppressed by his still earnestness. 

"Isn't it any proof to you that I hadn't the wits nor the education tomake the book?" His words were wistful. 

She sat down on the sill of the open window, the only seat in the room, and looked out on the moist earth. 

"I guess you want to get rid of me, " he said, "but I can't go till Iknow how it is with you, for I've been wrestling in prayer this nightconcerning you. " Then after a minute he said, "Our brother gave you themoney that he found on the person of your husband's murderer?"

"I paid it into the treasury. "

"But if you don't believe, maybe you are thinking of going east?"

"Do you think I could use the price of my husband's blood for that? Itis not for me to know whether the avengers of blood are right or wrongin a land where there is no law, but the money belonged to your Church. "

He looked at her as one who has made a study of a certain class ofobjects looks at a fine specimen, as a jeweller looks at a gem of thefirst water. This man, with the genius for priesthood, was a connoisseurin souls. "Emmar wouldn't have thought it no harm to keep the money theDanites gave her, " and he added more reflectively, "nor would I. " Therewas admiration in his tones. 

He came a step nearer now. "If you went east who have you to go to? Youruncle, he's dead. "

Susannah started. "How do you know?"

His manner was pitying. "I saw it last night in the way I see things, inmy visions, but Emmar she heard from some of the Saints that came fromPalmyra that your uncle was sick unto death, and last night the Lordtold me he was dead. "

She rose up suddenly. She had known too many instances of this man'scurious knowledge of distant events to think of doubting. Her firstthought was that if Ephraim was in this trouble she must go to him atonce. 

"Your aunt will be awful jealous of your cousin now she's only got him. "

Then under Smith's pitying glance Susannah shrank from the first impulseto go. She felt that there was something within her that merited hispity. She could not rush to Ephraim without invitation, because it wasnot for his sake but for her own she wanted to go. She believed thatSmith knew it. She felt thankful, as he had dared to accuse her of notloving her husband, that he had the kindness not to accuse her of this. A certain awe of Smith came over her; he could be violent with those whowere violent, coarse and jocular with his public who could be workedupon thus, but to her he spoke delicately, and he had shown her at timesbefore this that he knew her better than she knew herself. 

"Sister Susannah, " said Smith humbly, "it's my fault that you've becomethe brainy woman that you are, for I encouraged you at book learning(knowing as how when you found your heart 'twould shine with the morelustre), but if you were to go and live along side of a man as is abookworm you'd lose your chance of this life (let alone your soul'ssalvation by the apostasy which you think lightly of now). Anyhow I'dwait if I was you till his mother asks you, for she'd be in an awfultaking if you and he were talk, talk, talking of what she didn'tunderstand. And he is her only son, and she is a widow. "

With this last phrase, which had a good and Scriptural sound, Smith haddone. 

Susannah gave him her hand in farewell, and listened gently while againhe told her, as on the night of his flight from Kirtland, that hisfriendship and the friendship of his Church were always at her service. 

The prophet walked down the street. A crowd of the Saints and a groupof elders were waiting for him with impatience. Darling eyed his comingwith looks gloomy and furtive, but the prophet was no longer, as on theprevious night, wrathful and pompous. He spoke aside to Darling. 

"I thought it right to tell our sister Susannah Halsey that her Gentilehome had suffered bereavement. The uncle who has been as a father untoher is dead. I have been greatly exercised in grief for her, " continuedSmith, briefly and truly; and then he added, also with truth, but withsubtle suggestion, "I cannot think that further dealing with thathousehold could be of advantage to her, but having laid the matterbefore the Lord, I was made aware that we must seek the good of all oursisters not with regard to outward appearance or inclination of theeyes; therefore, Brother Darling, let your motive be lowly, not havingrespect unto persons, " and he added with the simplicity of a child, "asmine is. "

Susannah was left with the bad picture in her mind which Smith hadsketched there. She saw herself cold to her husband, lacking inpassionate motherliness to his child, eager for the society of anotherman not out of love but intellectual vanity, and cavilling also at allreligion because faith had no good soil to rest in. She sat long on thewindow-sill of the empty room, looking at an uncultivated patch ofground that even in May had no beauty save for here and there thestirring of a weed in the damp scented earth. She was stunned to see herlife limned in such lines, and the truth in the drawing made it at firstseem wholly true. 

But Fate had another messenger that morning more potent than theprophet. A girl came by on the road, stopped, looked at her window, andby some impulse such as moved the buds and birds, tripped nearer in thesunshine and offered a flower. It was a sprig of quince blossom, and thegirl stood laughing on the threshold of life just as Susannah had stoodwhen Ephraim first showed her the flower of the quince. The false linesin the picture drawn by Smith faded at the touch of the pink wingedflowers. Her heart sprang into the truth. 

The girl looked up to see the face of the schoolmistress flushed andshining with sudden tears. 

"My dear, " said Susannah gently, "when I was your age flowers were givento me, but I did not love them half enough. "

The maiden tripped away, resolving at heart to heed the admonition, although she understood it very vaguely. 

Susannah knelt down upon the floor behind the sill, pressing both handsupon her breast lest she should cry aloud. 

"No! No! No!" she whispered, "I loved Ephraim, and it was because I lefthim that my heart closed up--because in insufferable pride andimpatience I left him. Oh, my love, now I know that you loved me too. "She rocked herself in a passionate desire for Ephraim's presence. Thescene in the cold autumn wood at Fayette came back to her eyes and ears. She felt the very touch of his hand when he went. "Fool! fool!" shesaid, "foolish and wicked. If I Had not been proud, if I had not thoughtmyself better than you and yours, I should have understood. " For someunexplained reason her mind reverted now to Halsey and the child, andshe wept for them as she had never wept before. 

After these tears she stood up and stretched out her arms as ifembracing a new life. Alas! around her were only the ugly walls of thepoor unfurnished room. Susannah, rousing herself from the warm scenes ofquickened memory, felt the contrast. 

The hope of Ephraim's reply to her letter came to her smiling eachmorning, and, as the days passed, retired from her heart with a sigheach night. 

When six weeks had gone and no reply came Susannah wrote again. Thistime she addressed the letter to the care of Mr. Horace Bushnell inHartford, thinking that perhaps by some extraordinary chance Ephraim'swhereabouts might not be known in Manchester. This letter was, unlikeall those that had preceded it, more brief, more reserved, and moregentle. It expressed interest only in his affairs, telling little of herown except the fact that she desired to return. Autumn came, andSusannah's faith in man was tested to the utmost by the dreariness ofdaily disappointment. 

If Ephraim were dead surely his mother or his friend would return herletters. If Ephraim were not dead what could be the explanation of thissilence? Many vicissitudes of life occurred to her as possibly producinga change in him, and only one explanation of his silence waspossible--that he was changed. That was a terrible belief to face. Herfaith took the bit in its teeth and refused to be guided byintelligence. The whole strength of her volition abetted the revolt offaith. Anything, everything, might be true rather than that theessentials of character which went to make up Ephraim's personalityshould be blurred or decomposed. 

Susannah wrote again to Ephraim, to his mother and to Mr. Bushnell--three separate letters. She worked with the more zeal at herself-appointed task. So cheerful and energetic was she that she appearedto her pupils and acquaintance as a radiant being, and received the mostgenuine honour and affection from the Mormon settlement in Quincy. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

With the jubilant Saints at Quincy the prophet could not remain long. Hejourneyed up the banks of the Mississippi. Here and there communities ofhis people welcomed him with touching joy; their numbers and theirfaithfulness must have raised his heart. He came at last to a poor, sickly locality, around which the great river took a majestic sweep, andhere the prophet saw what no one else had seen--a site of great beautyand advantage. The inhabitants were dying of malarial fever. Smithbought their lands at a low price and drained them. Thus arose thebeautiful city of Nauvoo. 

In the Illinois State Legislature two parties were nearly equal instrength, and both coveted the Mormon vote. When Smith applied for thecity charter, for charters also for a university and a force of militiato be called "The Nauvoo Legion, " they were granted, and worded to hiswill. 

White limestone, found in great abundance near the surface of the earth, served as material for the public buildings and the better houses. Wooden houses, and even log huts, were washed with white lime. On threesides of the town the air of the beautiful river blew fresh and coolfrom its rippling tide; the surrounding land was fertile. Fortunecertainly smiled upon the sect that had borne itself so sturdily underpersecution. The prophet's laws had much to do with the prosperity;neither strong drink nor tobacco were admitted within the city limit;cleanliness and thrift were enforced. 

The Saints in settlement in the town of Quincy and other places remainedwhile they could obtain lucrative employment and thus transmit thelarger tithes for the building up of their future home; but from thepoorer settlements artisans and farmers flocked to Nauvoo. Thither alsothe missionaries scattered in the eastern States, in England, and infurther Europe sent the bands of converts who had been kept waiting tilla city of refuge was founded. It was not long, not many months, beforefifteen thousand people were hurrying up and down the broad streets ofthe new city. 

During the rise of Nauvoo, Emma Smith was living at Quincy in a smallhouse with her three children. She was Susannah's best neighbour. Theprophet's enormous activity was fully occupied with the new city and thecare of the scattered Church, so that he could not visit his wife often. Each time he came he sent for Susannah to listen with Emma to thetriumphant accounts that he gave of his present successes. He was allaglow with the resurrection of his Church, tender towards its renewedenthusiasm for himself, compassionate more than ever for the pains ithad endured; fixed in purpose to establish his suffering and loyalpeople in such a manner as might reward them for all that they hadundergone. His spirit of revenge against the Gentiles, and especiallyagainst the perverts from his own sect who had sought to trample itdown, was also increased; the prayers of the Hebrew Psalmist against theenemies of Israel were constantly upon his lips. More than once when atQuincy he preached to the little flock there with great effect from theblessings and cursings conditionally delivered to Israel in the Book ofDeuteronomy, arguing that evils of a very material kind were to befallapostates, and blessings of a like kind were to be given to the faithfulin the new city. 

"It is not true, " Susannah said to him defiantly. "There is norighteousness in desiring the downfall of your enemies, and earthlywealth can never have any fixed connection with spiritual blessing. "

"Do I understand you, my sister, to say that the prophet Moses did notteach a true religion?" As he spoke he laid his hand upon a huge copy ofthe Bible, bound in velvet and gold, which lay as the only ornament uponEmma's centre table. 

In these days Susannah began to have some fear of the word "apostate. "Contrary to the freedom which had existed in the Kirtland community, the present Church, with its dogmas cast into iron moulds from thefurnace of persecution, had begun to authorise a sentiment againstperverts which differed not only in degree, but in kind, from the purelyspiritual anathemas which had formerly fallen upon them. Personally shehad no fear. The prophet knew of her unbelief, and his conduct wasincreasingly kind and deferential, but for others she dislikedexceedingly the new symptoms of tyranny. Yet it was but natural, sheadmitted; men who had offered their own lives in sacrifice for a creedwere likely to think it of more worth to the soul of another than hisliberty. The sin, she thought, lay chiefly with the persecutors. 

Sometimes during these visits Smith came and sat beside her in her ownsmall room and talked to her about his plans, about new revelationswhich had come to him, about the future of the Church, just as if hewere trying to persuade himself that she at last believed in the solemnimportance of these things. He said to her that her judgment wouldalways weigh greatly with him, that he was reserving a portion for herin the new city such as would have belonged to her husband and child ifthey had lived. He spoke of his pleasure in seeing the companionshipbetween herself and Emma. He spoke also of Emma's worthiness, and of herdevotion to himself. 

His words about Emma were kind, but it was not thus that he had spokenof her in the first years. Susannah perceived a change analogous tothat which she could not deny had taken place in Emma herself. In thebeginning Emma had been slim, with a spiritual look in her eyes, givingherself to absorbed pondering over all Smith's words and ways. Now shewas stout, and was given much to the practical care of her children, and, devoted as she was to her husband, she assumed often a tone ofremonstrance, setting aside many of Smith's vagaries as unworthy ofattention. She thought to please him and his Church by dressing well andappearing to be a person of some figure and consequence, but in privateshe grumbled at his personal extravagance. At both these changesSusannah smiled, but to her heart, ever weighing the chances in favourof Ephraim's constancy, they seemed an ill omen. It was because she wasabsorbed in the personal application of all things to her own secretcase that she paid less attention to the prophet's remarks. 

Once, passing through the street, when she saw him standing with Darlingat the door of the tithing office, through which the mail for the Mormonsettlement still went and came, she observed the two men were noticingand speaking of her; she received a disagreeable impression from theirmanner. 

She supposed that she had found a complete explanation of this sinisterparley when, the next time Smith came, he brought with him an elderlyand foolish man, a new convert who had brought great wealth to the newcity, whom he proposed as a suitor for Elvira's hand. Susannah was veryangry. 

Elvira had continued for many months in the lassitude that malarialfever leaves behind it. Susannah had need to support her, as well asherself, by the small fees which her day-scholars could afford. She hadhad the satisfaction of seeing Elvira restored in a great degree tohealth, but so capricious and fantastic were the bright little lady'swords and actions that it was impossible to say whether or not she hadslipped across the wavering line that separates the sane from theinsane. 

Susannah stood now in her small sitting-room fiercely facing Smith andhis new satellite. She still adhered to the plain Quaker-like garb thather husband had liked, and the muslin kerchief crossed upon her breastwas a quaint pearl-like frame to the beauty of feature which had slowlybut surely, in spite of adverse circumstance, come to its prime. Smith'sstalwart figure and the decrepit form of his friend were both clad insleek broadcloth. They wore the high white collar and stock of theperiod. In Smith's light hair there was not a gray thread, nor werethere many wrinkles in his smooth forceful face. The old man was grayand wrinkled; he cringed and leered as Susannah rated them for theproposition they had made. 

But the answer to this proposition did not lie in her hands; before shecould compel Smith to withdraw it, or know if his mind was tendingtowards that obedience, Elvira, curious to see the strangers, entered. 

Elvira raised a coquettish finger and told Smith that he was a verynaughty man. This was a new freak in her conduct toward the prophet. Light and frivolous as she had become, the title of prophetess, covetedamong Mormon women, had been conferred upon her because some strangepower of divination governed her freaks. 

"A very naughty man. " With her delicate prettiness, decked in whatgewgaws she could afford, Elvira stood shaking her forefinger. "Youdon't know why? Oh, fie! you know very well, naughty, naughty creature. "

Smith had the air of some unwieldy animal trying to adapt itself to theunexpected gambols of a light one. The first supposition was that Elvirahad in some way learnt the object of his mission, so he began to declareit with a reproachful look at Susannah. "Our sister Halsey, " he said, "does not wish you to wear jewels and beautiful clothes, and yet it issaid in the Scripture that the clothing of ladies should be even ofwrought gold. "

"Naughty creature, " she cried, "don't quote the Scriptures to me. I amnot the lady you are thinking about. I am not the lady that you comehere to see. "

So intent they all were upon her and her affairs that this statement wassomewhat puzzling. The only sign that Smith gave that he gathered anysense out of the vivacious nonsense she was pleased to talk was that heprecipitated his explanation. 

The brother by his side was very rich; it had been foretold him in avision of the night that when he had professed the Mormon faith a prettywife would be his reward. Smith had had it borne in upon his mind thatElvira was the lady designed by the vision. "For, " said he unctuously;"the Holy Scripture saith that the solitary shall be set in families. "

Elvira laughed. "How very amusing, " she cried. "And into what familyshall our sister Susannah be set?"

Smith frowned. "Our sister Susannah, " he said, "is not solitary, but issurrounded by her spiritual children, to whom she imparts her ownlearning and goodness, to the great benefit of the Church; and I cannotbut think, Sister Elvira"--the severity in his voice was growing--"thatyou are a great care to her, for she toils hard to give you even suchpoor raiment as you are now wearing, not wishing to accept of the bountyof the Church, while she would be an example of industry to others. "

The hard truth of this statement, combined with the commanding voice andmanner he now assumed, controlled Elvira. She stood for some minutesmeekly contemplating her senile and smirking suitor. Susannah protestedand warned her, but in caprice, as sudden as it was unexpected, Elviradecided to comply with the prophet's request without further persuasionor command. 

When left alone with Susannah she only shrugged her shoulders and said, "I saw that I should lose my soul if I didn't; the prophet was sodetermined. Why should we bicker and consider, and why should I flyround and round, like a bird round the green eyes of a cat, or try toescape half a dozen times like a mouse when it is once caught, when Iknow from the beginning that Joe Smith will curse me if I don't do hiswill?"

"You are quite mistaken. He was not determined; he told me that he onlywished to lay the matter before you and let you decide for yourself. "

Elvira let her white eyelids droop until but a narrow slit of the darkeye was visible. "La! child, " she said. 

"And you cannot seriously think that Smith's curse, even if he werebarbarous enough to denounce you, could make the slightest difference toyour soul's salvation. You often talk that way, but you cannot seriouslythink it, Elvira. "

But here Susannah struck against a vein of darkness in her companion'smind which it seemed to her had lain there like a black incomprehensiblestreak since the awful day of anguish and massacre at Haun's Mill. 

"Don't speak of it, " cried Elvira with a shudder. "Don't you know thatJoe Smith is our prophet, and that he holds the keys of life and death?Didn't Angel Halsey die to teach us that? Weren't we baptized into it bybeing dipped in blood?"

She sat shuddering in the dusk and repeating at intervals "dipped inblood, " "dipped in blood. "

Whether Elvira was mad or not, Susannah had no power to stop thisnefarious marriage. The prophet had departed hastily out of reach of herindignant appeals, and there was no one whose interference she couldseek. In vain she besought Elvira, using both argument and passionateentreaty. With precipitate waywardness the strange girl was married byElder Darling, in the shed of the tithing house. 

No letter came from Ephraim Croom or from his friends. 

After Elvira's departure Susannah began to save out of her littleincome, trying to put by enough dollars not only for the easternjourney, but to give her respectable support afterwards until she couldobtain employment. She had little heart for the object of her saving;she might, she knew, be going to ignominy and starvation, for with thestigma of Mormonism upon her, she felt that it was unlikely that shewould be received with credit in any town where she was friendless andunknown. 

Although the community prospered greatly, Smith did not again interfereto increase Susannah's school fees. Emma began to talk largely of thesplendour of Nauvoo, reading from her husband's letters of the NauvooHouse, a huge hotel, which was being rapidly and grandly built for theperpetual occupation of himself and family and the entertainment of allsuch as the Church of the Saints should delight to honour. 

Susannah found it hard to understand why Emma was not taken to Nauvooeven before the great house was built for her reception. It was indeedcommonly reported among the Gentiles at this time that the prophet hadsecretly espoused other wives; but a malignant report of this nature, together with accusations of drunkenness and rank dishonesty, hadpersistently followed the sect from its beginning, and, as far asSusannah knew, were now, as before, totally untrue. This special report, however, reached Emma in an hour of depression, and she came to Susannahfor sympathy, shaken with grief and indignation. 

"What does it mean that they always say that of him when the one thingthat he's done has been to excommunicate any of the brethren that taughtany such thing? And there's just been an awful row on in the Council ofNauvoo against Sydney Rigdon and some pamphlet he's written on adoctrine he calls 'Spiritual Wives, ' and Joseph has risen up and casthim out, even though he was his best friend. "

The reason of the calumny seemed to Susannah clear enough; it was anatural one for low-minded politicians who hated Smith to formulate, andthe religious world outside thought they were doing God service bybelieving any ill of a blasphemer; but this charge was an old one, andshe probed further to-day for the real cause of Emma's excitement. Shewas first given a letter in which Smith told of Rigdon'sexcommunication. 

"Rigdon's doctrine, " wrote Smith, "is a vile one because it is held bythe whole sect of Perfectionists which are now scattered through theChurches of the eastern States, and is a proof that the glory of theLord is departed from them, for they say that a man may be married toone wife in an earthly manner, and she who is to be his in a spiritualand eternal manner may be another woman, and this is vile; thereforeI've cast out Sydney Rigdon and called him apostate. But it seems to mein this matter and in the perpetual slander of the Gentiles it may bethat it is being shown to us, even as things were shown by outward signsat times to the ancient prophets, that there is somewhat concerning theexisting form of marriage that it would be well to reconsider, for Iperceive that the more my revelations cause a difference to be setbetween our people and the Gentiles, the more shall we be bound closelytogether, which unity is undoubtedly of the Lord. "

Susannah always found it difficult to gather much information from theprophet's vague and incoherent style. "Has he ever written anything elseabout this affair of Rigdon's?" she asked. 

Then it transpired that another letter had that day arrived, givinganother and more graphic account of Rigdon's rebellion and overthrow, after which Joseph inconsistently wrote:

"Yet with regard to the matter of his heresy it remains undoubtedly truefor men who are called to some great and special work one woman may beneeded as a bride upon earth and another woman may be called as aspiritual bride" (this word "bride" was crossed out, though left legibleenough, and "guide" written above it) "to lead him into higher andheavenly places prepared of the Lord for this purpose. "

After perusing this passage carefully, and with inward laughter at itsinconsistency, she gave the letter back, endeavouring to render somehelp. 

"Have you not observed that your husband's mind is very peculiar? Whenany idea is forcibly suggested to him, all his thoughts seem to eddyround it until he thinks that the whole world is to be revolutionised byit, and then when diverted to something else he forgets all about itlike a child, and never thinks of it again perhaps for years. "

Emma, unable to comprehend the analysis, drew back offended. 

"Joseph has a great deal finer mind than any person I know. " The lastwords were levelled with a nettled glance at Susannah. 

On Emma's behalf Susannah confidently hoped that the prophet wouldforget this theory, as he had apparently forgotten the many theorieswhich had ere now proposed themselves to his excitable brain, and whichhe had found unworkable. His practical shrewdness acted as a critic onhis visionary notions--never in thought, for he did not seem able toexercise the two phases of his mind at once, but always in practice--andSusannah could not conceive that a new order of marriage would appearfeasible, even though it would certainly raise a new barrier around thefold, and in consequence draw its votaries closer together. 

Soon after this Emma was greatly comforted by a summons to Nauvoo. Shecould now enter in triumph upon the more glorious stage of her chequeredcareer. 

For a few days Susannah worked on still with a sense of mission towardsher pupils, but of necessity also, for her work meant daily bread. Itproduced little more than that. 

But at Nauvoo new schools in emulation of the State schools of othertowns had been set up, and now a teacher with certificates of the lateststyle of education arrived in the Mormon settlement at Quincy, commissioned by the prophet to gather all the Mormon youth there into anew school under the direction of the Church. Susannah's mission andher means of livelihood were alike gone. 

The change was made. It was not until Susannah had passed the firstdesolate day of her dethronement that Darling came to her, sent withprofuse apologies from the prophet and the explanation that the chiefmotive of the change had been to relieve her from labour now that theChurch was in a position to offer her adequate support. The message wasaccompanied by many compliments upon her work and her fidelity, and adocument officially signed, in which it was set forth that the part andlot which would have pertained to Halsey in the Holy City was consideredas hers; rooms and entertainment at the Nauvoo House were offered. Itwas handsomely done. Smith in his poverty had been no niggard, and ofhis wealth he was lavish. The documents explained what rooms, size andposition given, should be hers, what furniture at her disposal, whatailment, what allowance from the Treasury for clothing and charity. Thescale was magnificent. Darling was also commissioned to offer her aticket on one of the river boats to Nauvoo, and his own escort. He urgedher instant acceptance. Darling had been promoted from his post atQuincy to that of postmaster at Nauvoo, and he could not delay hisjourney. 

Susannah sat long into the night and counted her little hoard, andfigured to herself what the long-eastward journey, then a matter ofgreat expense, would cost. Since Elvira left her she had with all herefforts saved hardly fifty dollars. No course lay open to her but to gofirst to Nauvoo, and there compound with Smith for a sum of money to begiven in return for the relinquishment of all further claim upon theChurch. 

_Book III. _

CHAPTER I. 

In a suite in the pretentious Nauvoo House Susannah found herselfestablished. 

She stood at her windows and looked east and west upon the fair whitecity, and more immediately upon the broad public square in whichwell-dressed people and handsome equipages were constantly seen. In thissquare a man called Bennet drilled the Nauvoo Legion in the cool of theevenings. This man had served in the regular army and had a nativegenius for soldiery. Smith, alive always to the educational importanceof shows, now provided money lavishly for uniforms, horses, andaccoutrements, and the Nauvoo Legion formed a much grander spectaclethan any body of State militia. 

Twice a day under Susannah's windows Smith's carriage drew up, a pair offine gray horses carrying the prophet to and fro upon the affairs ofChurch and State. When he took Emma with him Susannah observed that shewas always richly attired, and the other members of the Mormonhierarchy resident in Nauvoo, "bishops, " "elders, " "apostles, ""prophets, " passed constantly in and out of the house, positivelyshining in broadcloth and silken hats, their wives and daughters also inbrilliant array. 

Externally the success appeared to be complete, and beyond even thevisionary's most glorious dreams. In the whole of the city no one waspoor, no one ignorant of such knowledge as school-books could afford, noone drunken. Every one was uplifted and animated beyond their ordinarycapacity for effort and enjoyment by this material fulfilment ofprophecy and the more glorious future hope which it involved. Susannahwas not well rested after her journey when Emma descended upon her withlavish gifts of silks and fine feathers. Emma, grown patronising withprosperity, always plain and maternal, displayed her gifts and arguedfor their acceptance with broad satisfaction. 

"Joseph says now that the Lord has given us freedom as touching wealthand plenty, it looks real mean, when your husband gave all he had to theChurch in her tribulation, for you to be wearing plain clothes whenyou're riding out with us. What will the folks say? Joseph says it looksto him as if you were real offended at being left so long up to Quincywhen he was only waiting to get your rooms finished. "

Carried away, as was only natural, by her husband's doctrine that theera of indulgence was ordained and not to be rejected, there wastemporary deterioration in the fibre of Emma's character. 

Susannah would gladly have walked out and seen the beauty of the cityand its surroundings alone, but she did not think it kind or polite toresist the good-natured importunity of her friends. She was invited todrive with Smith to a grand review of the Nauvoo Legion which was totake place outside the town; then, finding that Emma and the childrenwere to occupy another carriage, she made objection. It ended inSusannah being driven alone in a very fine carriage. Smith, resplendentin uniform and seated upon a very fine charger, rode in his capacity ofCommander-in-Chief. Several other men whom she had known first inhomespun, and latterly in cloth, were also riding in bedizened uniforms. The scene was very perplexing to Susannah. Elvira, with great display ofdress and equipage, was not far from her, and waved her hand withpatronising encouragement. The coach in which were Emma and her childrenpresented also a very smart appearance. All the town drove to the sceneof the review in what splendour they could afford. 

Susannah was greatly occupied in looking from face to face, striving, torecognise some of her husband's friends of earlier days. She fullyexpected to see Smith or some of his friends fall from their saddles, as they could be little accustomed to manoeuvring such light-footedsteeds, but she was forced to admit that Smith rode well and hisofficers kept their seats. She had so much to observe, so much to thinkabout, she hardly noticed that Smith rode constantly by her carriage, pointing out the beauties of the road. 

When they stopped at the place of parade, many of the gentlemen inuniform approached her, and as this was her first appearance in public, Smith performed the introductions. Among them was the Rev. General JohnBennet, a man who had "knave" written on his countenance, but whoappeared to have duped Smith, for, as Lieutenant-General of the forces, he was actually in command. Her old friend the Danite also came, olderthan when she had seen him last by the hardships of an arduousmissionary journey. He passed now by the name of "Apostle Heber. "Susannah was so glad to be able to inquire concerning his welfare, socurious to speak with him again and judge of his development, that hermanner gained the appearance of animation. 

After some time Susannah perceived that she was, as it were, holdingcourt. In their carriages the other women sat comparatively neglected. It was in vain that she tried to put a quick end to this curious andundesirable state of things. Smith continued to bring to her side allthose whom he delighted to honour. 

And this was only one of several fêtes which took place in rapidsuccession, to all of which Susannah was by some persuasion taken. Ateach she found herself an object of public attention. She was told thatthis occurred because she was a stranger, or out of respect to herhusband's memory, and she placed more trust at first in these statementsthan a less modest or more worldly-wise woman would have done. 

Soon her credulity ceased. She despised her own beauty because it wasmade a gazing stock. An article in the Nauvoo newspaper, officiallyinspired, spoke of her as a "Venus in appearance and an angel at heart. "She was elsewhere publicly mentioned as the "Venus of Nauvoo. "

It was indeed a strange experience, a strange time and place for thesocial _début_ of this beautiful woman. Smith had calculated well whenin her youth he had told her that her beauty would not diminish butincrease until her prime was past, but she very modestly inferred thatshe might have passed, as heretofore, without much notice, if anagitation concerning her had not urged to admiration a band of men whowere fast growing luxurious and pleasure-loving, and she knew that Smithwas the author of that agitation. 

It appeared to Susannah more dignified to ignore than to upbraid. Shesecretly laughed, she secretly cried with vexation, but she desired toleave the place without betraying her recognition of the homage offered. 

She sought to discuss her plan for departure with Emma, but Emma'smanner had changed to her. It was not jealousy so much as constraintthat she showed, as if secretly persuaded into unusual reticence. Susannah then asked Smith for such a sum of money as he should considerto be a right acknowledgment of the property Halsey had given to theChurch. At this Smith looked greatly aggrieved, and withdrew mutteringthat he would consider her request. 

The only sign of this consideration which she immediately received was agift of showily-bound books, and a rich shawl which he had fetched fromNew York. 

Susannah's career as the queen of Nauvoo society came to a swift end, for she determinedly retired into seclusion. This was not because themen who paid court to her were all ignoble. Among the officers of theChurch or of the Legion there were not few who were wholesome andfriendly companions, or who, like her early Danite friend, the ApostleHeber, had frank modest eyes, incapable of any enthusiasms that were notreligious. But in her long companionship with Angel Halsey Susannah hadhad her soul deep dyed in a delicate hue of Quaker sentiment. She couldnot admit for a moment that conscious display of personal charm wasconsonant with dignity. 

She again sought friendly intercourse with Emma. 

"There ain't no use in opposing the Lord, " said Emma excitedly. "If theLord, as Joseph says, has given you beauty and wants to set you to be astar, or a Venus; or whatever he calls it, in Nauvoo, I don't see thatthere's any good your talking of going away. I guess the Lord'll havehis own way. "

Susannah remembered how before her marriage the bigness of the authorityquoted had confused her as to the truth of the message. "Ah! Emma, Emma, " she cried, taking the fat, comfortable hand in her own, "if inthe first days I had offered a little more humility, a little more love, to those to whom I owed duty, I should never have believed what you toldme about the 'Lord's way, ' but I have learned by hard experience, and Ido not believe you now, Emma. " She spoke the name in quicker tone, as ifrecalling her companion to common sense. "Emma, " she repeated the namewith all the tenderness she could muster, "don't you know that it isbetter for me to go away--better for you, better for _us all_?"

But Emma was obstinately evasive. She seemed almost like one possessedby a hardened spirit, not her own. On the afternoon of that same day shebustled cheerfully into Susannah's room asking the loan of what moneyshe had to meet a temporary call. 

Susannah never had the slightest reason to suspect Emma's good faith andgood nature. She gave her money without a thought. 

CHAPTER II. 

The parlour which Joseph Smith had provided for Susannah was large andhigh. On its Brussels carpet immense vases of flowers and peacock'sfeathers sprawled; stiff and gaudy furniture was ranged round thepainted walls; stiff window curtains fell from stiff borders oftasteless upholstery. Susannah, long ignorant of anything but deal andrag carpets, knew hardly more than Smith how to criticise, and her tastewas only above his in the fact that she did not admire. 

Smith came to reason with the rebellious woman. 

Susannah no sooner saw him than she knew that he had come braced to trythe conclusion with her. He sat himself before her in silence. Hiswaistcoat was white, his neck-cloth white, his collar starched and high;his thick light hair was carefully oiled according to the fashion of theday, and brushed with curling locks upon the sides of the brow. At thiscritical hour Susannah observed him more narrowly than ever before. Hissmooth-shaven face, in spite of all his prosperity, was not so stout nowas she had seen it in more troublous years; the accentuated arch of theeyebrows was more distinct, the beak line of the nose cut more finely. She noted certain lines of thickness about the nape of the neck and thejaw which in former years had always spoken to her of theself-indulgence of which she now accused him; yet she could not see thatthey were more accentuated. She had been schooling her heart to rememberthat Smith had been her husband's friend; Angel Halsey had loved him, had daily prayed for his faults and failings, and thanked God for hisevery virtue and success. Through the medium of these memories nowSusannah looked upon him with the clearness of insight which the moredivine attitude of mind will always give, the insight which penetratesthrough the evil and is focussed only on the good. 

The prophet's breath came quickly, making his words a little thick. "Emmar tells me that you have some thoughts of wanting to leave us. "

"You know that very well, for I have told you so myself. I want you togive me money for my journey. If I can I will repay it, as you wellknow; if not, I will take it instead of all this finery you offer. "

He had folded a newspaper in his hand, and now he unfolded it. She wassurprised to see that his hands trembled slightly as he did so, for shehad seen him act in many a tragic scene with iron nerve. 

"'Tain't often that the Gentile newspapers have a word of justice tosay about us, " he observed. "This is a number of the St. Louis Atlas. Itseems there's one man on it can speak the truth. " He gave forth the nameof the newspaper as if expecting her to be duly impressed by itsimportance, and she looked at the outspread sheet amazed. 

He went on, "There's an article here entitled, 'The City of Nauvoo. TheHoly City. The City of Joseph. ' I'd like to read it to you if you don'tobject, Sister Halsey. "

The pronunciation of the last title seemed to inflate him; his handsceased to tremble. A flicker of amusement lighted the gravity ofSusannah's mind. 

Joseph read, "'The city is laid out in streets of convenient width, along which are built good houses, and around every good-sized house aregrounds and gardens. It is incorporated by charter, and contains thebest institutions of the latest civilisation. '" He gave this theemphasis of pause. "Is that true. Sister Halsey, or is it not?"

She smiled as upon a child. "Yes, Mr. Smith, it is true. "

"'Most conspicuous among the buildings of the Holy City is the templebuilt of white stone upon the hill-top. It is intended as a shrine inthe western wilderness whereat all nations of the earth may worship, foron March 1, 1841, the prophet gave it as an ordinance that people of allsects and religions should live and worship in the City if they would, and that any person guilty of ridiculing or otherwise deprecatinganother in consequence of his religion should be imprisoned. ' Is thattrue?" Smith inquired again. His questions came in the tone of a pompousrefrain. 

"Except in the case of those who have joined you and gone back from yourdoctrine, " she said, but not thinking of herself. 

He read on: "'Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Smith has attended first to theeducation of his people. The president of the Nauvoo University isProfessor James Kelly, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and a ripescholar; the professor of English literature is Professor Orson Pratte, a man of pure mind and high order of ability, who without earlyadvantages has had to educate himself amid great difficulties and hasachieved learning. The professor of languages is Professor OrsonSpencer, graduate of Union College, New York, and of the Baptisttheological seminary of that city. No expense has been spared uponschool buildings for the youth of both sexes, and the curriculum isgood. ' Is that true?"

"Yes, " she replied. 

He read on: "'The population is made up chiefly from the labouringclasses of the United States and the manufacturing districts of England. They have been grossly misunderstood and shamefully libelled. They areat least quite as honest as the rest of us, in this part of the world orany other. Ardent spirits as a drink; are not in use among them;tobacco is a weed which they almost universally despise. There is not anoath to be heard in the city; everywhere the people are cheerful andpolite; there is not a lounger in the streets. Industry is insistedupon, and with the hum of industry the voice of innocent merriment iseverywhere heard. Now, as to their morality, if you should throw coldwater upon melted iron, the scene would be terrific because the contrastwould be so great; so it is with the Saints; if a small portion ofwickedness happens among them, the contrast between the spirit ofholiness, and the spirit of darkness is so great that it makes a greatup-stir and excitement. In other communities the same amount of crimewould hardly be noticed. '" Again he asked, "Sister Halsey, does thisevidence of an impartial witness coincide with your observation?"

"Of the people it is undoubtedly true, " she said. There was areservation in her mind concerning certain leaders in the Church, butshe did not make it in words. 

He read on: "'With a shrewd head like that of the prophet to direct, with a spiritual power like his to say "do" and it is done, what wonderthat this thrifty and virtuous people should have made Nauvoo that whichits name denotes--the Beautiful City, the home of peace and joy. '"

He laid down the newspaper upon the marble-topped table, his large handoutspread upon it. "My sister, why do you wish to leave this beautifulcity? It is a place where each may have home and part and lot in itsdelights, but to you _all_ its wealth and power and beauty is offered. Did I not say unto you, when as a beautiful damsel you gave up home andkindred for the sake of the Church, that you should be as a queen amongits elect women, riding as in a carriage drawn by white horses andreceiving the elect from among the nations?"

The recollection of the prophecy which he had delivered concerning herupon the desolate autumn road at Fayette brought with it anotherrecollection--that of her parting with Ephraim the same morning--sovividly that her eyes filled with tears. Yet she marvelled too, withinquisitive recognition of the miracle, that the words of the visionary, then a beggar, should have been so nearly fulfilled. 

"It is quite true, Mr. Smith, and very marvellous that what you promisedme should almost be literally fulfilled. We have come to it, as you alsoforetold, by a path most terrible, and now we arrive at theconsummation. We live in a palace, and at its doors pilgrims fromEngland and all parts of Europe are arriving every day, and the richestof gowns, the grandest of carriages, and the whitest of horses are trulyat my disposal. But there is one discrepancy between your vision and thefact--I will not wear the silk robes, nor welcome the pilgrims with theassurance that they have here reached the City of God. I will notbecause I cannot. I refuse to accept from the hand of God such paltrythings as money and display, or even the honest affluence of our people, as compensation for the fire and blood through which we have waded. Ifthere be a God who is the shepherd of those who seek him, this is notthe sort of table that he spreads, this is not the cup which he causesto run over"--she had begun lightly, but her voice became more earnest. "Mr. Smith, we have walked through the shadow of death together; if youwould be exalted in the presence of your enemies, have done with yourchildish delight in such toys. "

Smith moved uneasily on his velvet-covered chair, and it, being of arather cheap sort, creaked under his bulk. 

"What says it in the end of the Book of Job, Sister Halsey? and whatcompensation did the Lord give for the sore temptations with which hehad allowed the devil to tempt his servant? As I read, it was fourteenthousand sheep and six thousand camels, and--"

She gave him credit for knowing the passage by heart; she had therudeness to interrupt. She rose and stood before him. All the longlatent defiance which her heart had treasured against him found vent inher tone, "Very well, Mr. Smith, if that satisfied Job, it will notsatisfy me. "

Smith, cast out of all his shrewd calculations as to what would winthis woman, fell back upon the inner genius of that priestcraft which sooften surpassed his conscious intelligence. 

"_What would satisfy you?_" It was a simple question, and he asked itwith overwhelming force. "By the hand of trust and affection which yourhusband gave me; by the memory of the beautiful babe that he broughtfirst to me for my blessing (and I laid my hand on its little warm headand blessed it); by these I claim the right to ask, Sister Halsey, whatis it that in Nauvoo or in any other city would satisfy you?"

She was humiliated in her own eyes. Alas! she had strong evidence thatEphraim's affection, on which she had staked all earthly hope ofhappiness, had in some way failed. Now under Smith's eye all courage tohold the unrealised ideal was lost; as the fixed stars twinkle, so herfaith went out for the moment of his interrogation. Her head sank in ashame she could not confess. 

While she hesitated he was looking at her shrewdly. "You know not what. Shall I tell you? There is but one thing, and that is love--the lovethat works, for those who are in need. Work for the needy is love to Godand man, my sister. "

He paused, looking at her with a glow of enthusiasm. Whatever he mightbe to others, this man, coarse in his outer nature, but liable always toeruptions of the sensitive inward soul of the visionary, was in thiswoman's presence often merely what she compelled him to be. If she hadknown that this was the secret of his power over her, the spell mighthave been less. 

"Is it not true, Sister Susannah?" he asked. 

She gave the admission mechanically. 

He went on, "I don't take it at all hard that you should feel that weare none of us up to you, but feel as you do that we are beneath you, for there isn't a lady in the place that's equal to you in delicate waysand sense and a mind to study books; but it seems to me that that's areason why you should love us, Sister Halsey. There is work for you todo; we need your guiding hand. You say to me that I am content withhorses and sumptuous living and fine raiment; and knowest thou not thatthere is upon my soul a great burden, even the burden of this greatpeople, to go in and out before them and guide them aright? I have needof thy counsel, my sister; there's that which at this time is greatlyagitating my own mind and the minds of our bishops and apostles, SisterHalsey, and it is of such nature that we cannot proclaim it openly untilwe know the mind of the Lord. On all other matters we have accepted theteaching of the Scriptures. For, behold, we have now the priesthood ofAaron in our midst, and the priesthood of Melchizedek, and the rites ofthe temple, save only the spilling of the blood of bulls and goats, which has been done away with by the Gospel. We have gone back to thefirst things, as is well known to you, Sister Susannah, and even here inthe wilderness we have set up our theocracy, and for its civil law wehave sought where alone such law can be found, in the command given untothe children of Israel before they desired a king, just as for allspiritual law we have accepted the commands given to the apostles in thenew dispensation, taking them as they were, without whittling them awayas a boy whittles a stick with a knife, as all those sects which willnot hear our voice have done. Now, Sister Susannah, is this true?" Heput his head a little on one side and looked at her with his eyespartially closed. 

"You need not take very long to explain that you worship the letter ofthe Scriptures, for I know it already, Mr. Smith. "

But he was in full tide, and went on, "When the Book says, 'Heal thesick, ' we don't say that that means something else, but we set about andheal 'em. " He slapped his knee with the palm of his hand. "When it says, 'Cast out devils, ' we don't stare round like the other sects and say, 'There ain't no devils, ' but we cast 'em out; and in the same way, whenthe Book says that the priesthood of Aaron and the priesthood after theorder of Melchizedek shall be serving always in the church and in thetemple, then we say, 'Amen, so shall it be'; and the same way withregard to tithing, for the Lord's tithes are recognised among us, andthe first-fruits, and the Sabbath day, and all such ordinances, nopicking and choosing as others. "

Then he explained to her again, as in Kirtland, that he was in doubtconcerning the marriage laws of the State. He said that, having searchedthe Scriptures, and learned what he could from other books, he was fullyconvinced that it was the modern so-called "orthodox" Christian Church(in which little else but signs of deadness and lack of faith appeared)that alone condemned the ancient usage of the patriarchs, which in theBible was nowhere condemned. He had read in a book that many of the Jewsand most of the Asiatics had more than one wife at the time of theapostles, and yet they had not preached against this as an evil. 

"They did not preach against slavery, " said Susannah. 

"They did not, " he said, "and I would say parenthetically, my sister, that it may be that our views on that subject, coming from the northernStates as you and I have done, have not been according to the mind ofthe Lord. I would have no man a slave because of misfortune, but if aman proved himself unfit to rule himself, I'm not sure about his beingfree. "

"Do you intend to revive slavery in our own race? Will your own peoplewhen they fail in business be sold, with their wives and children, asin the Old Testament?"

"I can't see but that it would be a deal less mean to arrange it thatway than to bring a race of free blacks from their own country and makeevery child they have a slave because he happens to be a nigger. " Sheremarked that his mild blue eye lit up with the true flash of theindignation of contemplative justice. "There's one thing certain, "continued he, "in my Church of the Latter-Day Saints no man shall be aslave to his brother because he happens to have a black skin, for, asthe Scripture says, 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin?'"

Surrounded as they were by the atmosphere of slavery, there was theresonance of true heroism, of true insight into the right, in his tone, but the reason he gave--could it be possible that he thought that thetext he quoted was an authority for his instinctive justice? It wasobvious to her that he was only a fool who walked by the light of sundryflashes of genius, but there was still the chance that the sum of idiocyand the genius might prove greater than the intelligence of common men. 

He went on, "But, anyhow, it isn't the institootion of slavery that'scome up for me to decide just here and now. Since we have been blessedwith peace and prosperity, the female converts that our missionarieshave been making all over the world (whom they have kept back fromcoming to us, letting no unmarried female come whilst the fires ofpersecution were passing over us) have arrived in great numbers, and thequestion is, Sister Susannah, how are we to steady 'em?"

What seemed so impossible to achieve in a pioneer State had in Nauvooactually been achieved--the women were in excess of the men. He had, insober truth, a social problem to solve, and the responsibility restedalone upon him. Brotherly love having been inculcated, the manners ofthe Saints were cheerful and familiar, more familiar, he said, than hedesired; but after all that they had endured he was fain to lay uponthem no greater burden than need be. He appealed to her, asking if onhis first release from imprisonment he had not been strict in hisinjunctions. 

"But now, " he said, "who am I that I should be able to take care of allthe young women that the Lord is sending to us from all parts of theworld? or am I to deny to them the privilege of coming to live among theLord's people? Am I to say to them that unless they have learning andwisdom and are perfect they shall not come? I guess that if it had beenrequired of me to be perfect before I came to seek salvation, I wouldn'thave come at all. But it's just like this--here they are! and they arenothing but poor ignorant working girls from England and Ireland and allparts of Europe. And am I to make nunneries to put them into?"

He confessed with some delicacy of language and words of bitter regretthat there had been of late some cases in Nauvoo such as were commonenough, alas! in Gentile society, but whose occurrence among the Saintshad caused excitement. Joseph Smith paced Susannah's room; hisharassment and distress on behalf of his people were either deeply feltor well feigned, and Susannah had no doubt that his feeling was true, that phase of him being for the time uppermost. When he came to sit downbeside her again, it was to sketch the misery to men and women andchildren which existed in Gentile society from this evil, which heaffirmed to run riot through the warp and woof of so-called orthodoxcommunities. 

Her ignorance of the world was so great that she assumed this accusationto be of the same stuff as the anathemas he constantly cast against theintegrity of the orthodox clergy. The point that she grasped was that hebelieved the thing that he said. She had at first assumed that should hepropose to institute polygamy she would know then, once for all, that hewas a villain; but now this test deserted her. He was meditating thisstep, and it seemed that his arguments, if the facts on which he basedthem were admitted, had some value. 

"There's that for one thing, Sister Susannah, " Smith went on in a brokenvoice; "it has been a mean sort of thing to have to tell you, but ithad to be said, and now there's another thing to be considered. Amongthe Gentiles who is it that has the most children? Is it your man that'shigh up in the ranks of society, who has money enough to give them agood education, to feed and clothe 'em? or is it your poor man, whosechildren run over one another like little pigs in a sty, and he caringnothing for them, and they have rickety bones and are half starved andgrow up to be idle and steal? I have noticed that a good man is apt tohave good children, and a clever man is apt to have clever children, anda worthless man is apt to have worthless children. Ain't that so? Andwhat sort of children do we want the most of? Well, in this way wewouldn't let your worthless fellow have any wife at all until he hadbrought forth fruit meet for repentance, and your common man only one;but I don't see but that it would be a real benefit to the State if yourgood, all-round man, as would be apt to have pious and clever children, had two or three or four families agrowing up to be an honour to him andto the Church, if it ain't against the command of the Lord; and in HolyWrit the Lord himself says to Solomon that he would have given him asmany wives as he wanted, barring them being Gentiles. "

"I will not argue about the Bible; you and I interpret it verydifferently, " she cried. "Your social argument might be well enough ifit were not that your good man when he had more than one wife _wouldcease to be a good man_"--her voice was vibrating with faith--"and hischildren would therefore have the poorest chance from inheritance ortraining. "

He was again pacing, but paused in his ponderous walk, struck by a flawin his argument which he had not before seen. "But if it were commandedby the Lord, Sister Susannah?"

"God does not command this wickedness. What you command in his name isat your own peril, Mr. Smith. "

He paused before her, asking with reflective curiosity, "Why are you sosure that it would be wickedness, sister?"

She had not arguments at command; she held fast to her assurance withthe same dogged unreasoning faith with which Ephraim's mother had of oldheld her belief that this Smith must be an arch-villain; she had put thewhole power of her volitionary nature upon the side of faith in theideal marriage, although she was painfully conscious that she had comeacross no particle of evidence for the existence of such a state. Out offaith, out of mere instinct of heart, which had not worked itself out inintelligent thought, she gave her unhesitating judgment. "I say that itwould be wicked because I _feel_ that it would be wicked; and any goodwoman, " she paused and looked him straight in the eyes, "and any goodman, would know its wickedness without arguments, and without weighingall possible considerations. "

His eyes fell before hers. He looked not angry, but grieved. As forSusannah, in the heat of her indignation she did not know that her ownlong effort to resist the unreasoning acceptance of cut-and-drieddoctrines and any dogmatic insistance upon opinion had here failed. 

Smith stood for some moments before her, and her fire cooled. He sighedat her dictum. Then he said gently, "But your judgment in this matterhas great weight with me, sister, and if I accept it you will perceivethat you are indeed the elect lady, and that by living in the light ofyour countenance I shall obtain peace. "

It was difficult for her not to suppose that her influence wasbeneficial. She thought at the moment that when she had left this placeshe might still correspond with Smith if he desired it. If it was partof his eccentricity to be willing to listen to her, why should she notbe willing to speak, and thus keep his madness under control?

Smith, regarding her, caught the gracious look upon her face which hadopposed to him so often only a mask of reserve. His imaginative hopeswere always ready to magnify by many dimensions the smallest fact whichfavoured them. His unsteady mind was fired by the presumption of sometriumph. 

"Have not I, even the prophet of this great people, waited with greatpatience? As the apostle saith, 'Let patience have her perfect work. '"

Susannah started and wondered. 

"For behold I did not desire that our dear brother, Angel Halsey, shouldgo into the forefront of the battle, nor would I trouble the first griefof thy widowhood, but behold I have waited. "

"For what?" Her question came sharply. His tone had changed her moodsuddenly; a memory flashed on her of the ill-written letter which Emmahad shown her of the phrases concerning the spiritual "bride" or "guide"who, even if all licence were denied to humbler folk, was to be aprophet's special perquisite. "What have you been waiting for, Mr. Smith?

"Nay, but I have waited, sister, until, having eyes, you should see, andears, you should hear, till you should understand that, going in and outbefore this great people, it is necessary for me to seek wisdom incounsel, and, above all, of a woman who hath a finer sense than man. Andit has been revealed to me, sister, that this may only be if thoushouldst give the counsels of thy mind and the smile of thy beauty to mealone and to none other, for that which is divided is not to be acceptedfor the building up of the Church. "

"You would have me believe that you have waited many years with thevirtue of patience before you say this? Understand yourself better. Itwas not patience; it was fear. You have known perfectly well always thatI would never have listened to such a proposal for a moment. It has beenfear and prudence that have hitherto kept you silent. What is it thathas made you speak now?"

With sharp decisive tones she chid him as children are chidden in anger, but childish as he often was, he had yet other elements in hischaracter; his blue eyes gave an answering flash that was ominous; thedroop of his attitude stiffened. 

"That which is ordained by the Lord is ordained, sister, and it causethme grief to know that this revelation, which I told thee many yearssince, is yet to be received of thee as a grievous thing, nevertheless--"

"Nevertheless, " she repeated in a mocking tone, as one weary offoolishness, "what nevertheless? Let us talk on some better subject, Mr. Smith, and after this be kind enough to have no dreams or revelationsabout me. Dream of your Church, if you like. I cannot hinder yourpeople's credulity, and I hope that you will continue, as you havebegun, to lead them in the main by righteous paths. And have your dreamsand visions about yourself, if you must, for I sometimes think that youcannot be much madder than you are now, but be kind enough to leave meout of them, for I am going away. "

She had now made him very angry. He was standing with flushed face, quivering with uncertain impulses of rising wrath, yet he stillstruggled for self-control. 

"Sister Susannah Halsey, it is not meet that you should make a mock ofthat which is sacred"--he gave a gasp here of stifled anger, and therewas a perceptible note of wounded affection beside the louder one ofoffended vanity--"of that which is above all sacred, " he stuttered, "itis not meet--meet--to mock--to mock. " The veins on his forehead werestanding out and growing purple. 

She had often heard of Joseph Smith's power of rage, before which allthe Saints quailed. She saw it now for the first time. 

She rose up, trying now a tone of gentle severity. "I spoke lightlybecause your words appeared to me childish and silly, but the more inearnest you were, Mr. Smith, the more need there is you should have donewith a thought that could lead to no good. I am no elect lady. Why doyou deceive yourself? I have told you before that I do not even believein your religion. "

As she spoke she became more and more amazed at the thought of what hisself-deception must have been, for in his ever-shifting mind he knew herinfidelity perfectly, and yet had persuaded himself that she wouldaccept some fantastic position as prophetess-in-chief. 

"How mad you are, " she said pityingly, "to know a thing and yet topretend to yourself you do not know it. Go and get your supper, Mr. Smith. Emma will be waiting to give it to you. And when you havethought quietly over what I have said, you are quite clever enough tosee that my way of looking at it is more sensible than yours. "

She had perhaps supposed that the mention of the domestic supper wouldbe punitive rather than soothing, but she was not prepared to find thatshe had displayed scarlet to the blood-shot eyes of a bull. 

"Woman, " his voice, deep and hoarse, was like thunder about her ears, "woman, is it not enough that the Lord has spoken?"

She saw by his purple face and parched lip, by the hard shudder thatwent through his frame, that his fury was stronger than he. She quailedinwardly. 

"It is not enough for me that you say the Lord has spoken. "

His lips worked as if in the effort to form anathemas his dry throatrefused to utter. Then, regaining his loud hoarse speech, with a chokingnoise he lifted his hand in a gesture of sacerdotal menace. 

"Woman, it is the last time. Choose ye this day between blessing andcursing, for the Lord shall send the cursing until thou be destroyed andperish quickly, because of the wickedness of thy doings whereby thouhast forsaken me. "

She cried in answering excitement, "I choose your curse rather than yourblessing under the conditions you propose. You are mad; go and calmyourself. "

Then, having exhausted her physical courage in this last defiance, shewent into her inner room, locking the door, leaving him in the manifestsuffering of an almost unendurable rage. 

CHAPTER III. 

That night Susannah packed her possessions in the smallest possiblecompass. The money she had lent to Emma would be sufficient for thejourney to Carthage, which was the nearest Gentile town, and thither shewas determined to go without an hour's delay, ready now to work or begher way on the journey farther eastward. 

As soon as the business of the next day was fairly started she went tothe suite of rooms inhabited by the Smiths, confident that Joseph'sexcess of fury had been transient. Emma was surrounded by her children, to whom she had just given breakfast. The prophet was about to descendto his business office. They both received Susannah with moderatekindness. 

The March sun shone in through the large windows upon the garishfurniture of the apartment, upon Emma's gay attire, and upon the shiningfaces of the three children, who stood gazing upward at Susannah, quick, as children always are, to perceive signs of suppressed excitement. 

Susannah explained that she had determined to go to Carthage that day, where she hoped soon to find some party of travellers in whose escortshe could travel farther; she hoped that it would be quite convenientfor Emma to return the money that morning. 

Smith gazed at Susannah intently, but only for a few moments. It seemedthat his mood had changed entirely, that he was now too much absorbed inthe business of the day, whatever it might be, to care whether she wentor stayed. He left them, saying that he would send money to Emma as soonas he could, that the trifling debt might be paid. 

Money flowed in such easy streams through the hands of the leading menof Nauvoo, that Susannah supposed that a messenger with the requiredamount would come up the stairs in a few minutes. She sat with Emma inthis expectation. 

"You are offended with me for going?" she asked, for Emma's mask ofindifference was worn obviously. 

"You wish to destroy your soul, " said Emma. 

"Ah, but you know, you have long known, that I do not believe thatsalvation in this world or the next depends on the rites of Mr. Smith'sChurch. "

"If I told this child that he would be dashed to pieces if he walked outof the window, and he did not believe me, would that save him?"

Emma made this inquiry with triumphant scorn; then she rose and began toattend to the wants of her children in a bustling manner. 

Susannah sighed and smiled. "I have at least the right to reject yourfaith at my own peril, for there is not in the wide world, as far as Iknow, man or woman who cares whether I save my soul or not. "

"And whose fault?" cried Emma, coarse now in her discomposure. "If youare so stuck-up that you think you can read your books and look down onus all, just because you are a beauty and the gentlemen bow down to you, 'tisn't likely that you'd have any friends acting that way. You can'teven behave civil to the gentlemen when they offer you the best that'sgoing. "

It was evident that some version of Smith's interviews with her had beengiven to his wife. Susannah wondered how much truth, how much fiction, had been in the relation. It did not matter much to her now, since shehad resolved to go at once. The whole of her life with that troubloussect seemed to be dropping from her like a dream. 

Leaving word that she would receive the money on her return or else callat Smith's office for it when she was ready, she went down into thecheerful noise of the street and bargained with a man who had horses andvehicles for hire. Having arranged that he should come for her at noon, she went about to make the few farewells she felt to be desirable. 

Darling was now postmaster of Nauvoo and one of the first presidency. Tohim she went first. She shrank from him because of his coarseness andthe jocular admiration which he sometimes had the audacity to expressfor her, but she could not forget how assiduous his kindness had been inthe days of Elvira's illness. She found him sitting, his heels on theupper part of a chimney-piece with a fireless grate, reading theMillenial Star. The hot April sun, streaming through the windows of hisoffice, had caused him to take off his coat, which was no longerthread-bare. His shirt sleeves were fine enough and white; the high hatthat was pushed far on the back of his head was highly polished. Opulence, self-indulgence, good-nature, and a certain element offanatical fire mingled in the atmosphere of the postmaster's office, andmade it somewhat turgid. 

When Darling heard Susannah's errand he became serious enough. Anapoplectic sort of breathlessness came over him, expressing a degree ofinterest which she could not understand. He settled his hat more firmlyupon his head. "Does the prophet know?"

"He knows. I have said good-bye to him and to Mrs. Smith. It is sad topart with friends that I have known for so many years. "

"And the prophet's going to let you go, is he?"

Darling, clumsy at all times, in this speech conveyed to Susannah thefirst faint suspicion that Smith might dream of detaining her by force. 

Darling's youngest daughter, who had been an affectionate pupil toSusannah at Quincy, waylaid her as she came out, and clasped her aboutthe waist with the ardour of an indulged child. She was a blithesomegirl of about fourteen. 

"I heard you tell father that you are going away. Is it true?" she askedimpetuously. 

Susannah tried to release herself from the embrace. "Yes, it is true. Never mind, you like your new teacher, you know, just as well as youused to like me. "

"I just guess I don't, " cried the child defiantly. "But anyhow, if youare going away, I'm going to tell you something. "

Whether the childish love of telling a secret, the girlish love ofmischief, or a dawning sense of womanly responsibility was uppermost, itwould be hard to tell. There, in the open square, while worthy Saintshurried to and fro on the pavement beside them, while horses jangledtheir harness and drivers shouted and exchanged their morning greetings, Darling's youngest daughter drew Susannah's head downward and hastilywhispered to her the fate of her letters to Ephraim Croom. 

"I know, for one day since we came here I heard father talking to theprophet. He said you'd written lately while you were at Quincy, and allyour letters had been burned. Now that's the truth; and I said to myself'twas a sin and a shame, and that you ought to know. Now don't go andtell tales of me, or father will be mad--at least, as mad as he ever canbe with _me_. " A toss of the pretty head accompanied these words, aflash of conscious power in the bright eyes, the spoilt child knowingthat her father was in her toils now, as truly as any future lover wouldever be. The school bell was ringing. The girl, her bag of books hangingfrom her arm, ran with the crowd of belated children. 

Susannah walked on, almost stunned at first by the throb of intenseanger that came with this surprise. Then the anger was suddenlysuperseded, hidden and crushed down by a rush of joy. Ephraim had notneglected her; Ephraim had given her up for dead; but she had no reasonto suppose that he was dead, no reason to doubt his faithfulness. Susannah trod the common street in love with motion as some happywoodland creature treads the dells in the hour of dawn and spring. 

When Elvira looked up to see Susannah enter her gate she saw her friendtransfigured in a glow of returning youth and hope. Elvira looked at hertimidly; this Susannah she had never seen before. Elvira's husband wasnot present. The interior of the house was fantastic almost as itsmistress, but sultry with luxury. 

"Well now, you think you are going, " said Elvira. "Who'd have thoughtit? And only last week General Bennet said to the prophet that if he'dmarry you to him he'd send to New York for diamonds both for you andEmma Smith. He said he'd get a thousand dollars' worth of diamondsapiece for each of you; but Mr. Darling said that you ought to bemarried to Mr. Heber, who has just been elected an apostle, because--"She stopped suddenly, nodding her head. "You know why--blood is blood, and we have seen it run in rivers, but we don't mention it here inNauvoo. "

Elvira set the French heel of her slipper in the centre of a rose uponher carpet and spun round upon it till her flounces stood out. 

 "We don't mention it here in Nauvoo. "

She sang as if it were the refrain to a song. 

Susannah felt from within her shield of new delight an immense pity. Here again was a revelation of the coarse and frivolous talk that wenton at the church meetings, and Elvira was privy to it through that oldfool, her husband. How could she endure him!

"O Elvira, in the last few days I have realised as I did not before thatriches are making fools of these men. How glad I am that my husband diedbefore he knew that this was to be the reward of his lifework and hisprayers!"

Elvira stopped dancing. The mystical side of her character now, asever, came forward suddenly in the midst of her other interests. Thesunshine was bright in the gaudy room. A tiny spaniel, which Elvira'ssenile slave had procured for her, lay on a red cushion in its fullbeam, looking more like a toy than a living thing. When Elvira stoppeddancing her flounces settled themselves with an audible rustle, and herthin delicately-cut face looked at Susannah from out its frame of curledhair and gold ornaments like the face of a spirit imprisoned in someunseemly place. 

"Heaven help us, Susannah, " she cried shrilly, "if you call Nauvoo thereward of Angel's prayers. Look!" she cried, pointing out of the window, "see how the new temple rises; how its white walls shine in the sun! Weare putting thousands upon thousands of dollars into it. It will be thegrandest building this side of the Alleghany mountains. " She let hersmall jewelled hand, with its pointing finger, fall suddenly, "and thereshall not be left one stone of it upon another, for the House of God isnot made with hands. "

"I see little signs of its foundations here. " Susannah spoke with fire. "Treachery and tyranny are poor bricks. "

"Child, its foundations are in the whole earth, here and everywhere, inevery nation and kindred. Men like Angel Halsey sow wheat; other peoplehave sown tares. The tares happen to be in blossom just now here inNauvoo. " She seemed to forget her seriousness as suddenly, for againshe spun round upon the centre of her rose, singing her little musicalrefrain. 

Susannah made one more appeal of the sort that she had made so oftenbefore Elvira's marriage. 

"You will not come away with me, Elvira? I do not like to leave youhere; you have not been yourself since Angel died. You are not bound tothis man because you were not sane enough to make a valid choice. "

It was plain speaking, but it did not ruffle Elvira's composure in theslightest. She laughed and began to caress her spaniel. "Mad. Oh yes, weare all mad, and growing madder, but it is because they have huddled ustogether at the point of the sword, until now to be a Mormon means to beshut out from the world and shut in to--to what? To the prophet'sdreams; and some of them are good, and some of them are bad, and some ofthem are mad; and let us thank Heaven that they are as good as they are, for to go back to the Gentiles who shot down Angel and the children hewas teaching to pray, and your child in your arms, that would be thebaddest and maddest act of life. " She rose up suddenly again. "Go!" shecried. There was a flame of real anger in her eyes. "Since the wish isin your heart, go! We believe now in strange doctrines. Two newdoctrines we have learned at Nauvoo. Do you know what they are? One is'baptism of the dead. ' If you get off safely, Susannah, and die in yoursins, one of us must be baptized again for you, so that you will besaved in spite of yourself. But the _other_ doctrine is '_salvation bythe shedding of blood_. ' Do you understand _that_ doctrine?"

"Indeed I do not. "

"And you speak with a tone that says that you neither know nor care whatnew things we have been learning. But you may have reason to care beforemany hours are over. "

She came near and whispered, "They teach us now that if a _man_ sinwilfully and will not repent, it is better that a minister of the churchshould slay him, for then his blood will make atonement for his soul. "She ceased to speak until she had thrust Susannah out of her door, andher last words were in a whisper of awesome import. "Perhaps _a woman'ssoul can be saved in the same way_. "

Susannah was out again in the cheerful busy street. She made haste tofulfil the one remaining call before she met her chaise at the hotel. She felt that her last word was due to the member of the Danite band whohad saved her in her hour of need and who had avenged her husband'sblood. 

To each of those who had made sacrifice for the sect, a lot of land inthe best part of the city had been awarded. Heber, Danite and apostle, had built upon his lot, and there she found him at the back of thecottage feeding a mare and foal which were tied in a small plot ofragged grass. He was much older now than when she had first seen him;daring and danger can lengthen time. He had the same indomitablefrankness in his dark eyes, but his face was hardened and fanaticism wasstamped thereon. It was a homely precinct, with utensils of house andstable-work lying about. The mare was drinking from a bucket, her gentlehead so near his shoulder that her love for him was easily seen. 

"I am going away, " Susannah said. "I have come to thank you for the lasttime for all your kindness to me and to say good-bye. "

"You shall not go, " he said harshly. 

It was the echo of something which she had heard twice before thismorning. This time it began to enter her mind with some sharpness. 

"Why not?"

"If you saw a friend hastening to destruction would you not stop her? Itis well known amongst us that you desire to go, and at the meeting ofthe presidency last night the prophet told us that you sought toapostatise. Go home, Sister Halsey, and repent, and obtain forgivenessfrom the Lord and from his prophet for your unbelief. "

She was able to stand for a moment quietly and watch him still busywatering the mare, admiring the skill and gentleness with which he didit, thinking sadly enough that she would never see this remarkable managain, nor know to what the mingled fierceness and gentleness of hisnature would grow. Then she offered him her hand in farewell withoutfurther argument. 

He shook the mare's head from his shoulder and, taking her hand, held itin an iron grasp. "As your friend, and for the sake of that good man, your husband, I beseech you to repent; but if you will not repent, forhis sake and for our sakes, because we have prayed for you, you shallstill be saved. "

Although beginning to be apprehensive of some coming evil, she smiled;and even rallied him upon one of the new doctrines to which Elvira hadalluded. 

"Do you believe that if I go away some one else will have to be baptizedover again for me?"

He looked at her with the same steadfast glance. "It could do no good. Such salvation is for those who die in ignorance of the truth. But foryou, who have been baptized into the truth and have fallen away, thereis no hope except repentance or the shedding of blood. "

Over the low paling she heard the neighbours' children at their play. Upon the other side was an open lot across which she saw the passers inthe street. She withdrew her hand from his now, but with a sinking atheart which did not appear to her reasonable because the surroundingswere so tranquil. 

He let her go, accompanying her, as any gentleman might, to the gate ofhis ground. As he opened it he had taken something from his coat, and heshowed it to her. It was a knife, very bright and sharp. Its blade whendrawn out had a double edge. "It will be better for you, " he saidmournfully, "to die than to go"; and then he hid the thing again andwent back. 

This time the idea that had been forcing itself into her mind tookpossession. For a moment all her strength forsook her; she held to thepost of the gate, looking after him as he disappeared up the narrowpassage between the paling and the house, and then, hurrying onward, shefound that it was only by the greatest effort she could walk withoutward composure. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Susannah found her rooms as she had left them. Emma was not there to bidher good-bye, nor did any messenger wait with the money. She set herparcels ready for the driver to lift and waited until after the hour, but the chaise did not come. 

At last she went down again to the livery stable, hoping, as againstvague but almost overpowering fears, that mere delay was the cause. Theman told her that he understood that she had countermanded her order. She gave the order again, but now he said that he could not go for theprice named, and when she offered a larger sum, he assured her that hishorses were all out. She knew now that her order had indeed beencountermanded, and by an authority higher than hers. She went back andboldly entered the prophet's public office. 

There were five men in the office. Joseph Smith sat in an elbow-chairbefore a central table. His secretary, a middle-aged man, sat at a smalltable beside him. Two of the leaders of the Church happened to bewaiting upon some business, and a fresh convert was standing with them, a well-dressed English artisan but newly arrived. Susannah walked up tothe table and addressed Smith. 

"Will you go down to the stable and bring me up a travelling-chaise?"

Smith rose with mechanical politeness, or perhaps with a feint ofpoliteness. "My dear madam, " he expostulated, "I must say--"

"I am sorry, " she replied, "that I have not time to hear what you wouldlike to say. I must ask you to be quick and get me the chaise. "

By this time she perceived that his companions were looking at her withill-concealed curiosity and excitement, which proved to her that she wasa marked woman. Her bosom dilated with a wilder anger as she looked atSmith expectantly; he returned the gaze sheepishly, as if dazzled by theaudacity of her command. His face after last night's passion had anexhausted look like that of a man recovering from an illness. 

"You also owe me money, " she proclaimed clearly. "Your wife borrowed allthat I had of the money I earned by my school. When you have brought thechaise you can give me the money. "

One of the elders, a sleek man, thinking the prophet at a loss, now madea wily comment. "Has Sister Halsey paid anything for living in the Housethis month back?"

At the insinuation that her money might be justly kept in payment ofthis debt if she spurned the Church's hospitality, Susannah's heartsank. She admitted its justice. It was part of her character to admitall possible claim against her. 

The sleek elder, following his advantage, spoke again. "The money givenfor tuition was given because of the ordinance of the prophet, andshould in any case hardly belong to this lady if she is apostate. "

Smith had the tact to see his opportunity, and, moreover, it hurt himsharply, hurt him far more than it hurt Susannah, to hear her right tothe privileges of the place called in question, to hear the opprobriousterm "apostate" cast at her. There were unbelievers in his communitywith whose hypocrisy or apostasy he could trifle, but he still had hisfaith and his inner circle of affections. Susannah, standing friendlessand penniless, appealed to all that was sacred in the memory of earlydays, while her beauty, her courage, her unbounded wrath, stimulated hislove of power. He spoke to the sleek elder in what was commonly calledthe prophet's "awful voice, " rising, his blue eyes becoming black intheir authoritative flash. 

"Our sister Susannah Halsey, because of faithfulness when the Church wasyet poor and unknown, and because of the faithfulness of her husband, who wears the martyr's crown--our sister Susannah Halsey, I say, iswelcome to the hospitality of the Nauvoo House as long as she hasremained and shall remain; and the money which has been given to herfor the school shall be returned to her, and more shall be added to it, for she laboured faithfully. "

He had left behind his moment of sheepish distress; with the return ofhis formal phrases he assumed full prophetical state and escortedSusannah out of the office with a manner of pompous deference. When theytwo stood alone together Susannah was aware that, although circumstanceshad not altered in the slightest, although she had just as much reasonfor extreme anger as a minute before, yet she could not summon the samehaughty air of command. 

"Will you get me the chaise and the money and let me go?"

"But in Carthage, " he asked kindly, "who will attend to your wants thereand protect you? I guess, sister, you haven't much notion how difficulta lady like yourself travelling alone might find it to get along. Itisn't among the Gentiles as with the Saints, where brotherly-kindness isthe rule. I guess you'd better go back to your room and think it over aday or two longer, " he said soothingly. "I'd be very glad to take youand Emma out for a ride this afternoon if you'd be willing to go--"

"Be quiet. " Her words fell sharp and quick in the midst of his gentletones. "Make arrangements at once for me to go peaceably, or I will goout, if need be, to the middle of the Square and proclaim my wrongs, sothat every woman and child in Nauvoo shall know what comes of trustingto you. "

She had chosen her threat carefully. She knew well that he understoodthe force of object lessons, and that to have even a suspicion againsthis kindness, bred in the minds of the children would be exquisite painto him. 

"You know that I wouldn't like that, Sister Halsey; but when you come tothink of it you'll see that it wouldn't serve your turn neither. Itwould only need for a few of us to say you was crazy and the whole town'ud see the more reason for not letting you go. Moreover, it would be amonstrous injustice to me. When have I failed to do anything that I everpromised you? Did I ever promise to let you apostatise? I guess, SisterHalsey, that you're excited, and if you just think over things for a dayor two you would see that we're not so bad as you think. But, anyway, this ain't just the place for us to have a talk together. "

When Smith moved on to lead her back to her own rooms, she followedquietly until they stood together in her parlour, the scene of theirlast quarrel. 

"And now, " said Susannah, "you understand very well that it is no suddenintention of mine to go, that it is my irrevocable decision. I have thismorning had my very life threatened; and I see now that unless youcommand that it should be respected I should very possibly be in dangerif I went away alone. You have offered again and again to drive me inyour carriage; I will accept the offer now. Get out your own horses, anddrive me yourself to Carthage. "

She saw a look of faint pleasure steal over his face. He liked to standthere in the quiet room listening while she spoke with some evidence oftrust. The pleasure faded into embarrassment, but she had seen it. 

"You have a good and a bad nature struggling within you, Mr. Smith. Byall that we have suffered, you and I, since the day that by somemysterious power you forced me to come to your baptism" (she stammeredin her eagerness), "by all that we have suffered, by that sympathy whichwe have at times felt for one another, assert yourself now. Do this oneright thing for me, and in all the future I will try to remember onlythe good in your life and not the bad. "

But he stood so long still looking steadfastly before him that she beganto fear that, unnerved by his last night's fit of fury, he was ready topass into one of those visionary trances which had been common in hisyounger days. 

She touched the sleeve of his coat. "I do not know if Mr. Heber's threatcould be serious, but it frightened me, and I know that I shall be safeon the road to Carthage if you take me. Go, get your horses and take meaway yourself. "

He looked at her pitifully, slipping into the style of his religiousmoods. "Thou sayest truly, sister, that there is none but I who could dothis thing, for since in mine anger last night, fearing that I had nostrength of my own to keep thee by me, I denounced thee to the council, there is no safety for thy life beyond the boundary of Nauvoo. " Hewinced here, as if seeing what he suggested. 

Noting how the idea of her violent death wrung his heart, she went onpleading with him. She quoted the exalted character of his earlyvisions, reminding him of the hour when the angel had shown him the darkfurnace of temptations through which he must pass. At this he wasvisibly stirred; the angelic vision of warning seemed to be again beforehis eyes. He roused himself, speaking in that tone of voice in which, when he rarely used it, she recognised his best spirit. "Sister, thouhast always been to me as Isaac to Abraham; for in the beginning when Iwas poor and alone and had nought in the world save the revelation whichthe Lord had given, and was tempted to doubt, then I saw thee and prayedthat thou shouldst be given me for a sign; and behold when I put forthmy whole strength to desire thee, thou didst come as a moth to thelight, burning thy beautiful wings of youth and joy. But I said, 'It iswell, for that which she has lost shall be restored to her with usury, 'and I knew in my heart that our brother Angel Halsey would not livelong, and that thou wouldst forget thy sorrow for him. But I swear untothee that thou hast never been to me as other women, but, as I said untothee just now, like the voice of the angel. "

She never knew how far he was entirely under his own control when thetendency to a state of trance was upon him, but she was anxious to takeadvantage of the better mood. 

She said, "And now what is required of you is that you should give meup. No blessing" (she spoke strongly), "no blessing can come to you orto your people until you do this one right thing. "

He was again looking not at her but at the blank space of the shadowedwall, and as if the wall was not there and his look went far beyond it. 

"You have loosened the bloodhounds and set them on my track, " she cried. 

He did not speak. 

"You--you alone will be guilty of my murder, for, I tell you, if you donot take me, I will go alone and meet my death. "

His head sank upon his breast with a groan such as a dumb creature inthe utmost pain might give. Almost immediately, to her surprise, he wentout. 

She was left alone. She was under the impression that Smith had gone todo her bidding, but she could not be sure. No faith in angelic vision, no spell of psychic warfare, relieved the situation for her. Theexternal evidences of some crisis which he had undergone only producedin her repulsion. Now, as ever since the temporary delusion thataccompanied her baptism, Susannah endeavoured to possess her soul freefrom that sense of touch with mysterious powers which had worked suchhavoc with the sanity of the members of this sect. 

From the window she saw the prophet crossing the road in the directionof his stables. He went, it was true, with slow, dreamy gait, butsteadily. Strange mixture that he was of sanity and shrewdness, mysticism and grosser evil, he was at that moment her only star of hope. She paced the room unable to forecast the happenings of the next hour, yet supposing that her very life depended upon its content. The suddenjoy that had come to her this morning joined with her fear, and producedpanic of heart. 

She computed the time it might take to harness the gay steeds, and triedto give the rein of her expectation the utmost length. To her delightshe saw the prophet's horses and the light vehicle he drove upon longjourneys emerge into the square. A servant led them up and down. Atlength she saw Smith returning, not with hasty steps, but as if againsthis will, walking again through the crowded place like a man in a dream. Men greeted him, but for once he gave no sign of seeing them. She heardhis footstep on the stair. When he reached her door he almost fellagainst it in the opening, and staggered as he entered the room as ifhis self-control had just lasted so far. He knelt down by one of thefashionable marble-topped tables with which he had graced her room, and, like an ill-conditioned soul, burst into tears and broken complaints. 

"But I cannot do it, " he gasped. "I cannot. "

In her hour of miserable waiting Susannah had thought of many thingsthat might occur, and nerved herself to meet them, but this distemper ofsoul, this failure of will in the man who had been undaunted throughyears of persecuting torture, was so wholly unexpected that she stoodaghast. 

He clenched his hands as they lay helpless on the white table. "O Lord!"he cried, and she could not tell from the tone whether the words wereoath or prayer. "O Lord, I cannot let her go. " His thick tears muffledhis voice, and still again and again during the paroxysm she caught thewords as if reiterated in choking anger, "O Lord, I cannot. "

His tears, however evil their source, laid hold of her woman'ssensibility; she was no longer a critical observer. She no longer setaside his strange inward conflict as a delusion of madness. Sheparticipated in his consciousness so far as to think that she wasactually witnessing the despair of a soul repulsing an opportunity ofrighteousness, and yet not so far dead as not to know its worth. Shetried to speak, but found herself, as at other times, so affected byhis overlapping emotion that she was trembling and had neither couragenor voice. 

Smith lifted his head, looking with terror into vacant spaces of the dimroom, as if following with his eyes some menacing form. He whinedpiteously. "I have purposed to be faithful"; he put up his hand as if toward off a blow. "Thou knowest! thou knowest!" His voice was like awhispering shriek. The terror of his face and gestures was appalling tosee. 

Susannah was infected with fear of an apparition so evidently visible tohim. Her mind swung, as it were, out of material limitations. She wasovercome with the belief that a third person was with them, and herheart went out in gratitude to that mysterious other for taking herpart. 

But the gilt clock on the marble mantelshelf ticked on; Susannah feltherself aware that the person of Smith's vision was withdrawing, repulsed. She almost cried aloud to the invisible, but checked theprayer, holding on, as it were, to her own sanity with both hands. Smithwrithed continually, moaning. 

When at length she succeeded in telling him faintly that if he refusedthis opportunity he must fall lower and lower and lose even the desirefor good, she found that her words had no longer any power to influence. He had passed beyond into some region of outer darkness, where thethings of sense did not seem to penetrate, and where, if the actions ofhis body were the expression of his soul, there was literally "wailingand gnashing of teeth. "

But Susannah hovered over him, not so much angry as pitiful, her ownagony of mere physical sympathy increasing. Terrified to be near him, too compassionate to withdraw, she watched till at last the veins in hishands and his face became swollen and knotted. She was unwilling to losethe hope of her sole influence over him, and yet was about to call forhelp, when almost suddenly he seemed to become conscious of hissurroundings again and shake himself free from the distress. 

In a little while he was sitting on one of the chairs, wiping his purpleface and swollen eyes with the large silken pocket-handkerchief that wasone of the signs of his recent opulence. She saw the large ring on hisswollen finger gradually loosen, and the hand return to its normal shapeand colour. She felt convinced that his pulses had gone back to theircommon flow, because his whole volition had returned peacefully to itslow ambitions and self-indulgence. She knew instinctively that it wasnot thus opulent and fierce that he would have looked had he come out onthe other side of his temptation. She stood, outwardly patient, waitinghelpless till he should speak. 

"Sit down, sister, " he panted condescendingly. He was fanning himselfwith the handkerchief now, as a man might who felt injured by undueheat in the atmosphere. 

Her refusal was concise and severe. 

He looked at her boldly, with no apprehension now in his eyes, not eventhe former conciliatory desire to receive her with fair words. She feltappalled. Could it be that his angel in deserting him had deserted her?Was there a devil strong enough to give her to him? It was perhaps onlyhis belief which overshadowed hers, it was perhaps only, as she thought, a sickness of nerve but the impression that unseen personalities hadbeen contending here was stronger upon her even than her anger and fear. 

Smith got up and went to the window. His horses and buggy were stillparading. 

"I guess I've changed my mind, " he said. He did not care, it seemed, todelude her, but he must still deceive himself. "I couldn't go againstthe voice of the church council to that extent; it wouldn't be safe foryou or me; and besides, 'tisn't the Lord's will that you should go. "

She recoiled, looking at him in steady reproach. 

"Well, as I said before, I guess you can think it over for a few days. "This was his easy answer to her look, and he went out, slamming thedoor. 

CHAPTER V. 

When that day began to wane Susannah was still sitting in the emptycurtained room. No plan which offered even a fair hope of escape hadoccurred to her mind. Although in pictures of adventure her imaginationhad been fertile, throwing out suggestions unbidden, her judgment wouldhave none of them. No one disturbed her. She was left in isolation, aprey to dismal thoughts. 

She saw the happy crowds dispersing in the Square from eveningrecreation. There was nothing to hinder her from joining them. Sometimesher sense of imprisonment seemed only a morbid dream, for on all sidesof the fair white city there was open ingress and egress for thefaithful and the stranger. It was hard to believe that at wharfs and onthe high roads fanatics watched for her, and yet after Smith's reluctantavowal she dare not doubt it. 

She saw evening fade over the broad semi-circle of the river, over themultitude of cheerful homes that sloped to its edge. When darkness cameshe found herself more than ever pressed and tormented by the grimshapes of fear and remorse and despair. She had terrible reason tofear, and felt as never before that she had brought this horridsituation upon herself by joining and rejoining the prophet's following. She had no hope now that Smith would relent. 

Beyond the city, eastward toward the sun-rising, lay the home ofEphraim's friendship, whither in the morning she had thought to bend hersteps. She saw it through the glad glamour of her recent knowledge thathe had not neglected her letters. All her desires fled to this thoughtof his friendship, like birds flying home. All her fancies clusteredround it, like climbing flowers that caress and kiss the object theyenfold when some rude wind disturbs. Whenever she withdrew her mind fromits contemplation, the circumstances on which she looked were the morerevolting. 

Ever since Smith left she had been more or less under the impressionthat an unseen person there in that very room had contended with him. Again and again she had swept it aside as an infectious madness that shewas catching from the fanatics about her, but it had recurred; and nowas, not caring to light her lamps, she sat alone in the darkness by thevery table against which Smith had writhed and wailed, she felt pressedupon by a spiritual life external to her own. 

Within her soul from some unknown depth the word arose distinctly as ifspoken, "Pray. You cannot save yourself. Pray. "

"I am going mad. " Susannah whispered the words audibly. It was acomfort to her even to hear her own voice. But when her whisper was pastshe again listened involuntarily. 

The words within her rose again. "Even so. Pray. If you are going mad, you have the more need. "

Susannah had come to class all search for definite and material answerto prayer as one of the superstitions of false religion. In thiscategory stood also the hearing of voices and obedience to monitionsfrom the unseen. Now she reproached herself because she could notimmediately silence this fancy of disturbed nerves. 

Long sad thoughts of all her reasons against prayer, strongest amongthem the futility of her husband's prayers, passed through her mind withtheir train of haunting memories, but in the cessation from argumentwhich these pictures of the past produced, the words arose again dearlywithin her soul, like airdrops rising from the depths of a well andexpanding into momentary iridescence on the surface, "Pray for help. Ifyou have no faith in God's arm, you have the more need to seek it. "

Stung by the fear that she was losing her mind, she rose as she wouldhave faced a human antagonist. 

"God's arm!" she said aloud, "my husband prayed such prayers, but I willask nothing till I see his request fulfilled. "

She spoke the quick words with an almost reckless sense of experiment. Her thought was that before she could honestly think of such prayer shemust see some fruit of Angel's petitions for this man Smith and for herown safety. 

"Save Smith from further degradation, " she said, her breath comingsharply. "Save me now, if that sort of prayer is right. Do this inanswer to my husband's prayers. Remember his prayers. "

She had begun recklessly, supposing that she was contending only withher own sick fancy; she was astonished that a few swift moments hadinvolved her in an increasing sense of personal contact, and she becameawed by the strength of the encounter. 

"My husband prayed for my safety, " she repeated with softened attitude;then, as if seeking for the protection which had died with him, sherepeated again and again, "Remember his prayers. "

She left the challenge at last apparently to die where she had breathedit in the dark cold air of her lonely room. The tension of her mindrelaxed. 

She sat down again, not knowing whether anything had occurred, but acrisis in the morbid working of her strained nerves had in some wayrelieved her. 

She was curiously unable to go back to her former agonised anxieties. Natural fatigue, even sleepiness, came over her, but not her fears, even though she wooed them. 

"Ah, well, " she said within herself, "it is quite true that it isuseless to consider when I can give myself no help. "

The habits of the Saints were early. When she heard silence fall uponthe great house she went into her sleeping-room and lay down upon thebed. Sleep came quickly. 

With the early dawn she opened her eyes. In the first moments ofhalf-awaked consciousness she was aware that one thought lay alone inthe empty horizon of her mind, like a trace left by a dream that hadpassed, as a wisp of cloud may be left in an empty sky. 

This thought was that she would at once go down to the river bank uponthe southwest of the town. 

When other thoughts awoke and crowded within her ken this thoughtappeared foolish, and still more so the strong influence it had leftupon her will, for in the momentum of this influence she had risenwithout debating the point. 

She was not aware that she had moved in her sleep or dreamed. She wasgreatly refreshed and again unreasonably light-hearted. She opened hershutters and saw that the dawn was calm and fair. As yet the sleepingtown had scarcely stirred. 

"It is better to go out than to stay in, " she said to herself as sheremembered that this hour would be her one chance of taking air andexercise unobserved. She heard the main door of the house open and, looking over the banister, saw a slattern with bucket and mop passinginto some back passage. She went lightly down and out into the freshfrosty air. 

What had that dream been concerning the river bank on the south-westernside? She could not recall it, nor had she ever explored the streets ofwhite wooden villas and cottages that lay upon that side. She wentthither now. There was no reason why she should not go, no reason to goelsewhere. It was a pleasant walk. When she had passed the last house, the bank sloped in open uncared-for grass where cows were grazing. Onlyhere and there she had seen a house-door open, and as yet in this placeno one was abroad except a boy who was playing idly in a boat, which wasdrawn half up on the muddy bank. 

The broad river, milk-white under a dappled sky, stretched south andwest. The other side was dim and blue in the faint vapour of therelaxing frost. The air was sweet and still. The sunbeams, imprisoned ineastern vapour, shone through the white veil with soft glow that cast noshadow but comforted the earth with hope. 

Susannah had a further thought in her mind now, but she felt no haste orimpatience of excitement. 

The boy was of an active, restless disposition or he would hardly havebeen out so early. Lithe and idle, he sat see-sawing in the floatingend of the boat, uncertain how to amuse himself. He returned Susannah'sgreeting with a lively flow of talk. 

"You don't know how to row, " said Susannah. 

She showed no eagerness, for she felt none. The hope she had just formedwas most uncertain, for it appeared not at all likely that she couldescape in this way without being molested. 

"I bet I can row, " said the boy, "as well as any man in town. "

"That isn't saying much, " said Susannah. "The men about here have veryfew boats, and they are most of them afraid to go on anything smallerthan the steamer. "

"I could row t'other side and back, " bragged the boy. "I could rowt'other side and back three times in the day. "

"You couldn't. "

"I couldn't! What will you bet?"

"I suppose your father wouldn't allow you to go, anyway. "

He was a fresh-faced, mischievous, eager young rascal, and he foundSusannah's manner pleasant and provoking. 

"Will you lay five dollars on it?" he cried. "Pap is away down toQuincy. If you'll lay five dollars on it I'll do it. "

"But I won't. "

The gambling spirit of the young pioneer was aroused. 

"What will you lay on it, then?"

"I don't believe you could row once to the other side. "

He bragged loudly and with much exaggeration of what he had done andwhat he could do, and began pushing off the boat to show her his speed. 

The boat was a rude craft, unpainted, flat-bottomed, but light enough, and not badly formed for speed. Susannah stepped into it without muchhope, scarcely caring what she did, but still provoking the youngboatman to attempt the crossing. 

"I shan't give you any money, " she said, "but you can row me a bit ifyou like till I see how fast you can go. You don't understand thecurrents, I am sure. "

"Currents!" said the boy, "I guess I understand all there is to knowabout them. "

Talking thus in light banter, they actually proceeded out onto the bosomof the milky flood without hearing any cry from the shore or seeing anyone who took note of their departure. The pellucid and comforting lightof the blinded sun grew warmer; the hum of industry in the town behindrose cheerfully upon the quiet air, and as the calling of the Aprilbluebird in the fields grew more faint, the splash of the oars and thewhirr of the gray water-fowl began to be accompanied by a low distantsound as of a watermill. 

"It's the excursion steamer, " said the boy. "We'll get in her waves andyou'll be scared. Ladies is always scared of waves. "

She asked if the steam-boat would stop at the Nauvoo wharf, but heexplained, with the knowledge that boys are apt to have of such details, that this steamer was coming from Fort Madison, and would keep to theMissouri side, that he had heard that there were some State officials onboard her, escorting the Governor of Kentucky, who was prospecting for aLand Company. 

They saw the white hulk of the steam-boat looming upon the water to thenorth. Her side paddle-wheels churned the flood. A strong purpose tookpossession of Susannah; she knew what she was going to do. 

She said to the boy, "No one could stop a steamer when she once startsuntil she gets to her next port. "

"I bet the engineman could stop her just as easy as that. " The boybacked water with his oars suddenly. 

"But no one on the river could make him stop and get aboard. "

"Yes, they could. My pap stopped one once. We was living down nearCairo, but not near a wharf. "

"How did he do it?" she asked, and her interest was intense. 

"Why, you just put up your hands like a trumpet and yell through them asloud as you can, and you go on waving and hollering. My pap said thebest plan was to call out 'Runaway nigger! Large reward!' They'd be sureto stop then to know all about it, and when they'd once stopped theydon't mind your clambering up, if you can pay the fare. "

Susannah felt herself wholly unequal to the loud task described. 

"They would never stop for you, " she, said. "You are only a boy, andthey would know 'twas only mischief. "

His reply was as before. He would lay five dollars on it that he couldstop the boat. 

She incited him to do this thing also. What faculty of caution the boypossessed was not as yet developed; he left the care for consequences tothe sedate lady in the stern, and forgetting his quest of the Missourishore, lay in the path of the steam-boat and howled unmusically, andmarred the peace of the placid morning by shouting concerning a runawayslave and a fabulous reward that was offered for him taken alive ordead. 

It is probable that what he said never rightly reached the ears of themen on the deck, but that they regarded the lady as a possiblepassenger; the engine was stopped. 

"We'd better cut now as fast as we can, " said the boy, somewhatfrightened. He seized his oars excitedly. "Or shall I tell them a bigyarn about the nigger?"

They were but slightly to one side. The prow of the steam-boat, whichdrew but little water, had already passed below them. A small crowd onthe vessel's deck leaned over the paddle-box. Standing up in the boat, Susannah searched the faces of the men looking down. They all looked ather. 

She singled out the captain by some sign in his dress, and pleadedurgent necessity for travelling with him. 

"Look here, " said the boy, looking up at her from beneath, "I call thata low-down, mean sort of thing to do. Why didn't you tell me square? I'dhave brought you if you wanted do come. "

She pleaded with the boy too. "It was better for you not to know mysecrets. If they ask you in the city you can say that you didn't know. "

A dozen hands were held out to help her to climb the ladder on theshelving paddle-box. "Keep off, " they cried to the boy, and he swungaway from the churning wheel. 

Susannah stood upon the deck pale and trembling. The magnitude of thestep came upon her, and she was beset by natural timidity and thepainfulness of her dependence. The men who stood around her with theright to question were not of a low class. The captain, brawny andrespectable, spoke for the group. Behind him was a short but dignifiedgray-haired gentleman whom she took to be the present or former Governorof the State of Kentucky, of whom the boy had spoken. With him wereseveral men who appeared to have some fair title to gentility. Otherpassengers pressed in an outer circle. 

She would fain have explained herself more privately, but she could notendure to accept the privileges of the boat without explaining firstthat she was not able to pay for them. "Gentlemen, I have no money. I amentirely unprotected. I have escaped in fear of my life from Nauvoo. "

She spoke instinctively, only desiring to set herself right, but whenthe words were said she knew that she had helped to heap opprobrium onthe sect in whose cause so short a time ago she would have died. Thepassengers were Missourians, as was the captain. Among them went awhisper of chivalrous pity for her and of execration for the prophet andhis followers. 

"Madam, " said the captain, "any lady as is escaping from those devilshas the freedom of this boat, and no ticket required, as long as I'm incommand. Isn't that so?" he asked of the crowd. 

The murmur broke into an open chorus of enthusiastic speech. 

Wild and deep as was her panting anger against Smith's oppression, Susannah shrank. The thought of profiting by this spirit of partisanhatred scorched her heart. 

The Kentucky Governor, a dapper man, who had been regarding her with atemperate and critical eye, now, urged by her obvious distressedtimidity, came forward. 

"How did you get among the Mormons, may I ask?"

"My husband, " faltered Susannah, "but he is dead. "

It would appear that her words tallied with some conclusion he had beendrawing concerning her, for without further parley Susannah foundherself being led in a formal manner down the companion-way. The briefreport which she had given of herself had preceded her through the boat. She heard the passengers whom she left on the deck making sentimentalremarks. Two coloured girls who were washing dishes in a pantry came toits door and gasped with emotion as they stared at her. In the saloonthe coloured waiters gaped. 

At the farther end of the saloon a stout and magnificent lady in silkand diamonds was seated before innumerable viands which were spread incircles around her plate. She stopped eating while her husband presentedSusannah. She alone of all upon the boat seemed to be overburdened by nosurge of sentiment or curiosity. She was a most comfortable person. 

Seated in safety beside her, Susannah could indulge the pent-upindignation of her outraged spirit in silent musings upon Smith'sdegradation and, the certain downfall of all righteousness under the newtyranny. And yet--and yet--the shock of the last few days, forcibly asit vibrated through all her nature, could not eradicate the sympathy ofyears--the memories of Hiram and Kirtland, Haun's Mill and thedesperate winter's march. Justice, her old friend, now her inquisitor, said sternly, "It was in these scenes in which some lost life and somereason that these men lost their moral standards. " But her heart cried, "Now that _I_ am insulted, I cannot forgive. "

The words of the Governor's wife, cheerful, continuous, and not withoutdiverting sparkle, were an unspeakable rest to Susannah, weary above allthings of herself. Whether because of a strong undercurrent of tactfulkindness, or in mere garrulity, the good lady's talk for some timeflowed on concerning all things small, and nothing great, like thelapping of the river against the vessel's bows. 

But at last her companion's situation grew upon her; she enlarged morethan once upon her surprise at Susannah's advent, and her feelings ofextreme relief that she was safely there. 

"What a mercy!" she sighed comfortably. "Such awful people! Why, I hearthat when any child among them is weak or deformed they just murder it. "

Like one who is enraged with his own kin but cannot hear them falselyaccused, Susannah contradicted this statement. 

"It is perfectly true, " the Governor's wife declared. "I have heard itseveral times. How long have you been at Nauvoo?"

"Three weeks. "

"And in that time they offered to kill you! Well, I assure you if youhad been a sickly child they wouldn't have let you live three days. Andthey say that that monster they call the prophet has at least a dozenwives. "

"Oh, no. "

"Ten or eleven, at any rate. "

"He has only one, and he has always been very kind to her. "

"How they have imposed upon you! Where have you been living that youhave not heard more of their iniquitous doings than that?"

Susannah was faint and ill with the conflict within her own breast whenthe dapper Kentucky Governor, on business intent, came to them from agroup of the smoking men. 

"James, " cried his wife, with an edge of sharpness in her low voice, "this lady doesn't even know a tithe of the enormities that arepractised in Nauvoo. "

He shook his head, and said that it was a compliment to Susannah's heartand mind that the tenth part had been sufficient to alarm. 

His manner was stiff and formal, but his disposition seemed very kind. 

He asked Susannah if the Mormons had retained all her property, and whatdestination she now proposed for herself; and then with great delicacyinformed her that there was a proposition among the passengers to makea collection, to defray the expenses of her whole journey. 

Susannah's cheek paled again. 

"How could I return it if it came from so many?" she asked. Her whitehands were clasping and unclasping themselves. Must it indeed be bymeans of such humiliation that she saved herself from Angel's Church?

The Governor determined upon further generosity. "If you would prefer, take it from me as a loan, " he said. 

She gave him Ephraim's address. It was so long since she had spoken hercousin's name to any one that tears came when she felt herself bound toexplain that she was not certain that he was alive. 

"He is probably alive. Ill news travels fast. "

She blessed the dapper gentleman for this unfounded opinion, for thekindness that prompted it, more than for all else that he had done. 

His advice was that Susannah should continue upon that boat with them asfar south as Cairo, in order to take advantage of the steam-boats nowplying on the Ohio River, so that the expense and weariness of the landjourney would be diminished to the small space between the uppermostpoint on the Ohio and the western entrance of the Erie Canal. There wereseveral men upon the boat, he said, who could commend her to the care ofevery captain on the Ohio. 

Susannah felt too weak and weary to say more in defence of the morals ofNauvoo. She could not struggle against the fact that her claim to thegenerosity of which she stood in such helpless need was recognised andsatisfied by the hatred of these Gentiles. 

When in the succeeding days she had time to meditate, while she spentmany a long hour on the decks of river-boats watching the shimmeringlights and shades that pass upon open river surfaces, the perplexing andcontrasting aspects of her situation played in like manner upon herheart. 

She had suffered so much, such long and deadly ill, as a member of thisalmost innocent sect, suffered bravely in protest against the vileinjustice of the persecution, and now that she was escaping frommiseries inflicted by this same sect, she was wrapped in the kindlyreverse side of the persecuting spirit, and carried home in it, with allthe deference that would be accorded to a lost child. She was too tiredand helpless now to defy the good thus given. Did all her formersuffering go for nothing as a protest against the wrong?

With more curious feelings, more involved sentiments, she regarded thehistory of her more inward life. With what strong protest against theobvious evils attendant upon unreasoning faith had she resisted throughmany years the infectious influences of belief in an interferingspiritual world. Now she had defied Smith with a faith in the idealmarriage unsupported by any conscious reason, and when she had lookedto the interference of Providence, not even in meekness, but indesperate challenge, she had strong impression of being encompassed byinvisible power and protection. In vain she said to herself that thesimple and unlooked-for method of her escape was one of thosecoincidences which only appear to support faith, that her deliverancehad been of no unearthly sort, but brought about by means doubtfullyrighteous--consent to trick the boy and to say little on hearing theMormons falsely accused. When she had told herself this, the impressionthat underneath her folly a guiding hand had impelled and saved her, inspite of her small marring of the work, remained. Even while her bosomwas swelling with shame at hearing her husband's sect derided, andeating the bread of that derision, and still greater shame at knowingthat condemnation was merited, she would find herself resting in theassurance that beyond and beneath all this confusion of pain there wasfor her and for all men an eternal and beneficent purpose. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Susannah left the canal boat at Rochester. She had borrowed as small asum as might be, and was now penniless, possessing only her travel-worngarments; she had no choice but to start toward Manchester on foot. Foodwas easily to be had; such a woman as Susannah had but to enter anyhouse and state her need. She got a long lift on her way from a farmerdriving to Canandaigua. Of the farmer she asked, while her pulses almoststopped, some information about Ephraim. 

"He's kep up the place to a wonderful degree like his father, " said thefarmer. 

From this she gathered that Ephraim was alive and in better health. 

She asked no more; her lips refused to form his name again. 

"The old lady, she was took off with a stroke; she and the old gentlemanis laying together in the graveyard. " The farmer volunteered thisinformation, and Susannah, who had nerved herself to meet Ephraim'smother with humility, now wept for her loss. 

From the town of Canandaigua she walked beside the winding river andentered Manchester from the west at the hour when the May dusk wasmelting into moonlight. 

The public road, then as now, was lined with elms and many anapple-tree. The dusk of the elm branches was flecked with half-grownfluttering leaves, and the outline of the apple branches was heavy withblossom. The air was sweet in the shade of the night-folded petals, theperfume bringing involuntarily the thought of the hum of bees which hadgone to rest. There were some new houses on the road, but the tide ofprogress had here ebbed, leaving the once ambitious village like a rockpool, beautified only by those ornaments of nature which thrive instillness. There was more on the road of gable and shrub and tree whichwas familiar than of objects strange to her eye. The few people who wereabroad gave her scarcely a glance, the half light veiling all that wasforeign in her garb. The round moon hung above the willows of the river. 

When she came in sight of the white Baptist meeting-house she scannedits homely appearance as one looks at the face of an old friend. Theyellow light within was put out as she approached. Out of the door agroup of men were issuing as if from some evening service. 

What vivid memories the scene brought her!--memories of her unclesinging psalms with slow and solemn demeanour, of her aunt's high andmore emotional voice, of the pew in which as a girl she had sat betweenthem, listless and impatient, wondering at times why Ephraim remained athome. 

Her uncle and aunt were now lying in the graveyard. She paused a momentat the thought, looking at the small host of modest headstonessurrounded by wild-flowers and half-fledged shrubs. It has never beenthe custom in Manchester to cultivate God's acre. Above, the branches ofthe nut-trees stretched themselves in the sweet spring air--they toowere just leafing. 

Standing by the low, unpainted rail, Susannah wondered in what part ofthe yard her aunt and uncle lay. 

She observed that the small coterie of deacons had passed on to the roadand dispersed, leaving only one of their number, who was locking themain door with an air of responsibility. Susannah did not look twice;she knew that this man was Ephraim. He stooped slightly to fit the keyin the lock; then, evidently having forgotten something, pushed the dooragain and went inside. 

Susannah did not wait; she went up the graveyard path and in where thegreat square windows cast each a strip of light athwart the dark pews. Ephraim turned from his errand and met her in the aisle. 

"Ephraim. "

Ephraim Croom fell back a step or two, as if his breath was set tooquick by joy or fear. 

Susannah could not speak again. 

At length Ephraim stretched out his hands and grasped her arms gently, then more strongly, making sure that she was not a trick of light andshade. Then, not knowing at all what he did, he clasped her in suddenhaste to his breast. 

Susannah felt his arms wrap about her as if she had been a little child. She had never felt, never conceived, of closeness and tenderness likethis. Ephraim, his breast heaving and his arms folding closer andcloser, was out of himself. There was no conscious meaning expressed byhim, but she knew, knew at once without shadow of doubt that he himselfhad been the dreamer of whom he wrote to her, who had learned so much byyielding all the loves of his heart to one, and that she was that woman. 

It was a long moment; at last, as if waking from a dream, Ephraimrelinquished his hold. He leaned against the side of a pew, and hiseager look seemed to hold and fold her still. In the dim light she couldnot see his eye, but she felt the delight of his glance falling uponher, a brighter, softer influence than the mantle of the moonlight. 

She laid a hand lightly on his shoulder with a motherly touch. 

"I have startled you, dear Ephraim; I hope I have done you no harm. "

He made as yet no answer but to take her hand, grasping it with roughheartiness as if this was the first moment of their meeting. 

Susannah laughed as women sometimes laugh over their cherished ones forvery joy, not amusement. "Speak to me, " she coaxed. "I have come back toyou. Do you think we are in a dream?" She let herself kneel on the oldfloor of the old aisle, and, clasping both his hands, laid them againsther cheek. 

With his returning self, something of his habitual formality of mannerwould have returned had she remained in any common attitude, but to thiscoaxing, kneeling queen Ephraim (although his whole life had passedwithout caresses) could not behave with reticence. 

One thing he did not do. He did not hint that it was unseemly that sheshould kneel at his feet. Chivalry was the very substance of the soul ofthis son of New England, and no outward seeming could disturb his serenereverence for the woman he loved. He stooped over her, now stroking herhair, how holding her hands close against his heart, now whisperingwords that in their audible passion were new and strange to hisunaccustomed lips. 

"I am all alone, Ephraim. I have no money, no clothes. I have walkedmost of the way from Rochester to-day. "

"Are you very tired?"--as if the fact that she had been walking that daywas all that needed his immediate attention. 

"I was forced to come suddenly. I only escaped with my life. But I havelong been wearying to come to you, for since my husband and the childdied I have been quite alone. "

"We heard that they were dead, but that was long ago. " There was no toneof reproach in his voice, only curiosity. "You never wrote, and I--Isupposed that if you were alive you--you preferred to remain, Susy. "

She did not enter into explanation then. After a while, when he hadraised her to her feet and embraced her again, she whispered, "Why areyou in the meeting-house, Ephraim?"

"We have been having a prayer meeting, " he answered. "And I keep the keybecause--because my father used to. " He gave the reason with anintonation half playful. "I do many a thing now because he did. "

"I thought that you at least would never become like the others. Arethey less foolish" (she made a gesture toward the pews to denote theirlate inmates), "less unjust than they used to be?"

As they went toward the Croom homestead he answered her words in hismanner of meditative good-humour which she knew so well. "I don't knowthat they are less unjust and less foolish than they used to be, or thatI am either, Susy, but--it is not good to worship God alone. "

She pressed close to his side and looked up through the honied blossomof the apple-boughs; the violet gulfs of heaven seemed to be made morehomelike by his tones. 

"The sun, they say, is ninety-three millions of miles away from theearth's surface, Susy; and think you that if some of us climb themountains we are much nearer light than those in the vales?"

She remembered sentences which she had conned from his letters which ranlike this, and her thought on its way was arrested for a moment by thememory of the spot where she had lost those letters, the thought of thegrave by the creek at Haun's Mill and of her husband's steadfast faith. So they walked in silence, but as they stood by the garden gate underthe quince tree, she detained him a moment with a child's desire to heara story that she knew by heart. 

"Ephraim, you wrote once that you knew a man who loved--"

When he had given the answer she wanted, they went up the little brickpath, and Susannah noticed that the folded tulips and waxen hyacinthsflanked it in orderly ranks. Their light forms glimmered in the branchshadows of the budding quince. It was true, what people said, thatEphraim had not let his father's home decay. The door stood open, ascountry doors are apt to do. 

There was a lack of something in the dark appointments of thesitting-room. The traces of busy domestic life were not there, andsadness filled the place of the parents whom she had unfeignedly longedto see again. Through a door ajar she saw light in the large kitchens. Acandle was upon a table, and an old woman, unknown to her, sat sewingbeside it. Ephraim, holding a burning match in clumsy fingers, lit astudent lamp--the fire of a new hearth. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Two years after that, Ephraim, returning one day from the field, broughtwith him a poor wayfarer whom he had met upon the road. 

The stranger was of middle age, with hair already gray and face deeplyfurrowed. In ragged garments, resting his bandaged feet, he sat proppedin the sitting-room. The warm air blowing from rich harvest fields camein at open door and windows. Attentive before him, Ephraim and Susannahsat. 

"You are one of the Latter-Day Saints?" Susannah asked. 

"I am, ma'am, and it's real strange to hear you say them words, for it's'Mormons' the Gentiles calls us. "

Then to her questioning he told the story of the downfall of Nauvoo. 

"There was two causes for the persecution; we had got too powerful andtoo great for the folks in Illinois, just as we had done in Missouri;but there was another thing, and that was that wickedness crept inamongst us. 'Twasn't as bad as was reported, though, but 'twasthere--I'm afraid 'twas there. "

The man sighed. 

"It's twelve years now since I joined the Saints in Missouri and when wewere driven out there I went with them to Illinois; and I can neverbelieve other but that the Latter-Day Saints has the truth, for thepower of it is always to be seen among them; and now that I've losteverything a second time, and know that I have a sickness that I'llnever get the better of, I have come east to see my folks once more andto testify to them of the truth. "

He was going on into Vermont, passing by that way that he might refreshhis eyes with a view of the sacred hill, and had only remained atEphraim's request to relate his tidings to Susannah. 

"After coming out of Missouri I never lived at Nauvoo. I had a farmmidways, between Nauvoo and Quincy. As near as I can make out, thescandal they've got agen us, which they've always had agen us because ofthe wickedness of the Gentile mind, began to have some truth in it whenRigdon came out with his teaching concerning the nonsense of spiritualwives, which wasn't new with him, for I hear that it's held among allthe folks as call themselves 'Perfectionists. ' Well, our prophet madepretty quick work of that doctrine, and he rebuked Rigdon in public andprivate, and packed him out of the place, and no one can say that ourprophet has ever done otherwise with any one as has had notions aboutmarriage. "

Susannah sighed. "I have heard that he has acted the same way in severalother instances. "

"You have, ma'am? Well, it's strange, too, to hear a Gentile say a goodword for our prophet, but perhaps, as he came from here, ma'am, you maybe some relation of his; and I ask you, is it likely, as he's alwaysacted so severe in that matter, that he should have taught a falsedoctrine himself? But even some of the Saints do say nowadays that hewas led away by some strange doctrines before he died; but, for my ownpart, I believe that the tales have arisen from the sinful natures ofmany of the men that he trusted; for he was too trustful, and there'sapostles and bishops and elders amongst us that are servants of hell. There's been evil work since our prophet's martyrdom, for there'sthousands of our people now deluded by them and going out after Mr. Brigham Young and his crew. 

"You want to know how the prophet's death came about, and I can tellyou; for when my disease came on, and the doctor told me 'twas fatal, Istarted to go up to Nauvoo to ask the prophet to lay his hands upon meand heal me. But when I got there the city was all in a buzz, for thecause that some of the elders had got out a paper accusing the prophetof having a lot of ladies for wives. Well now, I can tell you how thatcame about. When our prophet first got the charter for the Nauvoo Legionthere was a man called Bennet, who had been general in the Americanarmy, and who was steeped in unbelief and ambition, and who came andoffered his services to the prophet, and was allowed to build up theNauvoo Legion. He was a most sinful man, and the prophet, he knew hissinfulness, but thought that he ought to take any help to build up anarmy to preserve his people from the fearful persecutions. Bennet gothold of the worst side of the worst men we had in the Church, amongwhich was the new usurper. " He paused here with ire in his eye. "I wouldbe understood to mean Mr. Brigham Young, who has falsely usurped theprophet's place; but there are many of us who will not follow him, no, not one step. The Lord will requite him and his confederates, and willestablish his true servants. "

"I fear, my good friend, " said Ephraim, "that although it is true thatthe Lord will establish his true servants, it is also true that theirkingdom is not of this world. "

"Well, sir, tramping along as I've done many a day, with no companionbut the disease that's prevailing against me, I've thought that that maybe true; but, whichever way it is, Bennet set himself to work iniquity, and they say that when the prophet could endure him no longer and gavehim the sack, he had the vileness to dress himself up in the prophet'sclothes and go about in disguise, talking Sydney Rigdon's rankspiritual-wife doctrine to the ladies and some of them were such foolsthat they thought it was the prophet, and that he disguised his voiceand kept something over his face in order to work the iniquity insecret. That's what a gentleman who knew very well about it told me. Butanyway, when Bennet was gone out he wrote awful things to the Gentilenewspapers concerning the domestic iniquities of Nauvoo; and he had hisown party in the sacred city, and they up and put their scandals in thepublic print in the prophet's own city. 

"But the prophet he rose up and shook himself, like Samson when his armswere tied with the withes, and he denounced the wickedness, and went tothe house where the paper was published, and kicked the printing pressdown himself, and burned the paper. And that day he preached mostpowerful in the Nauvoo Temple. "

"We heard that it was on account of the illegality of his action in theprinting office that the people of Illinois arrested him. "

The stranger did not answer directly. His mind had passed on to sceneswhich had stirred him more personally. 

"I was in the city all the time. The Government of Illinois sent toarrest Mr. Smith, but his people rallied round him, and said that inconsequence of the lawless persecutions that had passed in Missouri theyhad a right to mistrust the justice of the State. They called out theNauvoo Legion, and sent back the constables that had come fromCarthage. That made the Gentiles terribly angry. The Illinoismilitiamen went about saying openly that they would burn down the townand kill every man, woman, and child in it. So then Governor Fordhimself advised our prophet to keep the Legion under arms, for he saidthe Gentiles were so furious; but he asked the prophet to go to Carthageand pledge himself to appear for the trial when it came on, for it was acivil suit, and no harm could come to him and his. Governor Ford pledgedhis honour as the Governor of the State. 

"I had been waiting about the town until the prophet should be lessbothered before asking him to heal my sickness, but when I heard that hewas going away, then I misdoubted that it would be long before he cameback. I thought I'd make a push for it, so I went and hung round thedoor of the prophet's house. I was only a poor man and I did not like togo in, for the bishops and elders and all the grand folks were going inand out all that day. I heard the things they said, and most of themwere saying that the prophet had had a vision, and that if he went toCarthage he would never come back alive. They said too that if hestayed, the town would be sacked, and I understood that they were askinghim to run away. Towards evening I saw a buggy draw up at the back doorof the hotel, and all the elders seemed to be holding a meeting, forthey were singing hymns; so then it just come to me that they were goingto get the prophet off, and I ran down the road to the ferry, for Iknew he would have to go that way. I waited in the boat, and the samebuggy came down to it, and a man with a cloak on and his hat over hiseyes came out and sat in the corner of the boat, and we all knew that itwas the prophet, and none of us durst speak to him. But I went over inthe boat, for I hoped I'd get up courage to ask him when we came to theother side. When he stood on the shore he seemed like a man that didn'tknow what to do, although there was horses there for him to take, and heturned round and went off the road up on to a little hill; and I wentafter him a bit of the way behind, and I came and found him juststanding looking at the city, for the river swept round two sides of itso noble like, and blue as the sky above, and the city stood all white, and the temple stood high in the middle, and all of it glistened in thesun. The prophet had taken off his hat, and he stood with his handsfolded on the stick he carried, and he just looked and looked at thecity. I had never seen a man look like that but once before, and then itwas a man I knew whose wife died, and he looked at her face juststeadfast like that. I couldn't think to speak to him about myself justthen, although I'd got him alone, for my heart was just broke to see howsad he looked, and him just in the prime of life; for it was his owncity, and the sound of all its work came over to us as we stood there, and the thousands and thousands of happy homes in it belonged to hisown people. 

"But when I moved a bit he saw me, and he started at first as if I'dbeen going to shoot him, thinking no doubt that I was an enemy spying onhim. At that, because my disease had weakened me, and because I seemedto feel nothing all through me but the grief that he was bearing, Ibegan to cry like a child. 

"Then he stretched out his hands towards the city and I heard him say, 'My Lord, thou hast given me this people, and if I leave them without ashepherd they will be stricken and scattered and robbed by thedestroyer. '

"So then in a few minutes he held out his hand to me, so gentlemanlike, as if I was as good as him, and he said, 'Come, my friend, let us goback, and let God determine what we shall do or suffer. ' So we went andgot on the ferry-boat and went back, and I never spoke to him; but Iwent with him all the way to his house. 

"The next morning I heard that he and Mr. Hyrum were going to set offfor Carthage to be tried. So I got a horse and went to Carthage beforethem, for I felt then that I cared for nothing but to see the prophetagain. But I heard tell how, as they went along, their wives and theirfriends went with them part way, and they turned back two or three timesas they were parting from them, for the prophet said that they wouldnever see his face again. 

"Governor Ford he met them at Carthage with a great to-do. He pledgedthe honour of the State that they should be safe, and he had the troopsdrawn upon either side, and he passed down between them with the prophetand Mr. Hyrum and showed them himself into the gaol. The prophet saidthat it was illegal to put them in the gaol, for it was a civil matter, and Governor Ford said, for I heard him, that it was because they wouldbe safer there. I was standing just behind the line of soldiers jostlingup with the crowd, and I heard the Governor say, 'I pledge you myhonour, and the faith and honour of this State, that no harm shall cometo you while undergoing this imprisonment. ' So then they were shut in;but the crowd and the soldiers remained in the streets, and I heardenough to know that harm would come. 

"The next morning the Governor went away from Carthage, to be out of it, and that day, in the afternoon, a mob of men with faces painted likeIndians came out with guns, and we knew that their purpose was to murderthe prophet. I went to the gaol and sat upon the steps, and the militia, which was called the Carthage Greys, came out, and halted, about eightrods from the gaol, and I thought at first that they would fire on themob when they came, but they never moved, but stood and looked on. Sothe murder was done by them all in cold blood as well as by the mob. "

"Did you see him die?" asked Susannah with white lips. 

"If he was a relation of yours, ma'am, I can tell you that he died likea man. First I thought that I would spend what little strength I hadleft in fighting the mob at the door, and that they should not go inexcept over my body; but the gaoler opened the door in pretence offinding out what was the matter, for he was in the plot; so I thoughtthat I would run up and give warning. But by the time I got to the doorof the upper room where the prophet was, the mob was up behind me, so Inever rightly knew what I did, for they knocked me down just within theroom. There were four or five men with the prophet and Mr. Hyrum, andthese kept the mob back for a few minutes at the door, but a bullet hitMr. Hyrum in the head, and I saw the prophet leaning over him, and hesaid in a voice that was very sad, 'My dear, dear brother!'

"Then the prophet stood up quite calmly and pulled out a pistol and shotat the mob until all its barrels were discharged. His firing made themen hold back, for a good number of the mob were struck. Then they cameon again until the door was literally full with muskets and rifles, butI was lying on the floor below the shots, so I saw them pass over myhead. The very walls were riddled with them, and the prophet stood inthe midst of the shots and threw up his hands towards heaven and cried, 'O Lord, my God. ' Then, not knowing what he did, he staggered to thewindow, dying from his wounds, and he fell outside the window, and Iheard that the mob out there propped up his body and used it for atarget. "

Susannah rose up with clenched hands and pitiful face, but she went outof the room, leaving the two men together. "Were you injured?" askedEphraim of the stranger. 

"Well, sir, I was bruised by being trampled on, but the gaoler got holdof me and dragged me into an iron cell and locked me in, and the nextmorning he came and let me out. "

"That was a year ago, " said Ephraim. "Have you been in Nauvoo sincethen?"

"Yes, I went back. I wanted to know, sir, what would come, and take myshare of the suffering after seeing the prophet die so courageous; but, sir, the Church is sorely divided. I didn't like to say it before yourlady, for I see that she's got some one she cares for amongst us, butthere's a strong party among the apostles and elders that areworshippers of Baal, and are most evil in their conduct and practice, and are apostate, though they call themselves followers of the prophet. And Mr. Brigham Young is at the head of them. It's a bad thing that theIllinois militia is set out to fight against us and turn us out of thecity without mercy, but it's a sorer thing that the greater part of ourpeople, being ignorant, will follow Mr. Brigham Young; and he's bent ongoing west, sir, into the heart of the Rocky Mountains, where he can setup a kingdom of his own. His teaching is against good doctrine in tworespects; he says that they will wax strong there until they can avengethe blood of their brethren who have been hunted and slain, and that theelders and apostles will live like the patriarchs of old, and have manywives, in order to build up the Church. "

"And has the other party in your sect no strength to resist?"

"Very little strength, sir, except that God is on the side of therighteous; but Mrs. Smith, the prophet's widow, with his sons and manyhundreds of us, will not give in to the evil, but will stay in Illinoisand Missouri in face of the worst that persecution can do, for it wasthereabouts that the prophet said that the Holy City should be, and hegave us no word to kill and destroy our fellow-men; and although perhapshe was led away and sinned sometimes as other men do, it is a scandalouslie to say that he thought to teach wickedness and falsehood to hisChurch. "

"I wonder, " asked Ephraim within himself, "if that is true, or whatstrange secret that troubled soul took with him to the other side ofdeath?"

In the evening after the stranger was gone Susannah sat with Ephraim inthe old doorway. Before them, mid the harvest fields, winding over hilland dale, lay the long white road which led to the hill of Smith's earlyvisions--the road on which Susannah had set forth with Angel Halsey onher wedding journey. 

"You are a-weary, wife, to-night, " said Ephraim. He smoothed the hairupon her brow. "You have exhausted yourself with long weeping, andyet--"

He did not say, "Have you reason to bemoan this man's tragic end?" forhe knew that more sacred memories had caused the tears; of these somefaint jealousy rose in his breast and kindness sealed his lips. 

She told him the truth in very simple words such as loving women use. 

"To-day I seemed to see" (she laid her hand across her knit brows) "allthe passion of it again, the wrong, the right, the misery--from the daythat Angel and I went out with such young passionate desire to dividethe right from the wrong. I could see Angel and my baby shot before myeyes as Joseph Smith was shot. It is terrible to see death come thatway. But they are all three lying now in the perfect peace of death. "She put her hand in his. "Then, dear, my mind came back, from the rageand terror of war. I thought of their peace and of you--how God hashealed my life by your love, and given me such joy. Is he not able toprovide for the healing of the nations?"

THE END.