she had done. He waited
long, indulging freely in hesitation, bathing his wearied soul in her
nearness--yielding in fancy.

Then he walked off into the night, down through the village, past the
light of open doors, and through the voices that sounded from them, out
on to the bare bench of the mountain--his old refuge in
temptation--where he could be safe from submitting to what his soul had
forbidden. He had meant to take up a cross, but before his very eyes it
had changed to be a snare set for him by the Devil.

He stayed late on the ground in the darkness, winning the battle for
himself over and over, decisively, he thought, at the last. But when he
went home she was there in the doorway to meet him, still silent, but
with eyes that told more than he dared to hear. He thought she had in
some way divined his struggle, and was waiting to strengthen the odds
against him, with her face in the light of a candle she held above her
head.

He went by her without speaking, afraid of his weakness, and rushed to
his little cell-like room to fight the battle over. As a last source of
strength he took from its hiding-place the little Bible. And as it fell
open naturally at the blood-washed page a new thing came, a new torture.
No sooner had his eyes fallen on the stain than it seemed to him to cry
out of itself, so that he started back from it. He shut the book and the
cries were stilled; he opened it and again he heard them--far, loud
cries and low groans close to his ear; then long piercing screams
stifled suddenly too low, horrible gurglings. And before him came the
inscrutable face with the deep gray eyes and the shining lips, lifting,
with love in the eyes, above a gashed throat.

He closed the book and fell weakly to his knees to pray brokenly, and
almost despairingly: "Help me to keep down this self within me; let it
ask for nothing; fan the fires until they consume it! _Bow me, bend me,
break me, burn me out--burn me out_!"

In the morning, when he said, "Martha, the harvest is over now, and I
want you to go north with me," she prepared to obey without question.

He talked freely to her on the way, though it is probable that he left
in her mind little more than dark confusion, beyond the one clear fact
of his wish. As to this, she knew she must have no desire but to comply.
Reaching Salt Lake City, they went at once to Brigham's office. When
they came out they came possessed of a document in duplicate, reciting
tha