re you will never tell her anything about--anything, until I'm
gone?--You promised me, you know."

"Well, didn't I promise you?"

"Not under any circumstances?"

"You don't keep back anything about 'circumstances' when you make a
promise," retorted Mr. Follett.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

_The Gentile Issues an Ultimatum_

June went; July came and went. It was a hot summer below, where the
valley widens to let in Amalon; but up in the little-sunned aisle of Box
Canon it was always cool. There the pines are straight and reach their
heads far into the sky, each a many-wired harp to the winds that come
down from the high divide. Their music is never still; now a low,
ominous rush, soft but mighty, swelling as it nears, the rush of a
winged host, rising swiftly to one fearsome crescendo until the listener
cowers instinctively as if under the tread of many feet; then dying away
to mutter threats in the distance, and to come again more fiercely; or,
it may be, to come with a gentler sweep, as if pacified, even yearning,
for the moment. Or, again, the same wind will play quieter airs through
the green boughs, a chamber-music of silken rustlings, of feathered fans
just stirring, of whisperings, and the sighs of a woman.

It is cool beneath these pines, and pleasant on the couches of brown
needles that have fallen through all the years. Here, in the softened
light, amid the resinous pungence of the cones and the green boughs,
where the wind above played an endless, solemn accompaniment to the
careless song of the stream below, the maiden Saint tried to save into
the Kingdom a youthful Gentile of whom she discovered almost daily some
fresh reason why he should not be lost. The reasons had become so many
that they were now heavy upon her. And yet, while the youth submitted
meekly to her ministry, appearing even to crave it, he was undeniably
either dense or stubborn--in either case of defective spirituality.

She was grieved by the number of times he fell asleep when she read from
the Book of Mormon. The times were many because, though she knew it not,
he had come to be, in effect, a night-nurse to the little bent man
below, who was now living out his days in quiet desperation, and his
nights in a fear of something behind him. Some nights Follett would have
unbroken rest; but oftener he was awakened by the other's grip on his
arm. Then he would get up, put fresh logs on the fire or light a candle
and talk with the haunted m