here it had
previously been determined that the new church should be organised. He
himself 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 accord
to remain. He would bring a chaise, in which she could travel if she
would, near her uncle's house at dawn upon the next morning. He would
take her, he said, to the house where the Smiths were in Fayette, but it
was implied through all the letter that the mystic marriage which Smith
had solemnised was considered by Halsey as valid, and that if she joined
her material fortunes now to those of the persecuted sect, it would be
as his wife.

In speaking of the future he did not gloss over the persecution; he did
not even promise, as Smith had done, a sure and material reward. The
mind of the young Quaker convert was fixed upon the things that are
unseen. This was not hidden from the girl. The thought of being with him
in his faith and resignation gave her peace. Poverty and persecution
seemed as nothing compared with the torture of being surrounded by
people whose thought and actions aroused in her young heart whirlwinds
of passionate opposition. Even Ephraim, instead of rising in his
strength to condemn the outrage of yesterday, had attempted to-day to
wound or kill. Her amazement and dismay at this drove her out as it were
with a scourge.

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

CHAPTER VIII.

At break of day Halsey was waiting upon the road with a fairly good
horse and a comfortable chaise. Susannah never forgot the light that
came 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 a
cross corduroy road that led through the woods, passing only some small
clearings to the west of Palmyra, and thus by a detour avoiding that
village, he returned again to the highroad between Canandaigua and
Geneva. The pursuers, upon failing to hear that the chaise had passed
through Palmyra, might turn back, or if they had gone on they might have
outstripped them on the road, and be in front rather than behind. This
danger peopled the long lonely road with possible enemies both before
and behind. The strai