ou wouldst forget thy sorrow for him. But I swear unto
thee that thou hast never been to me as other women, but, as I said unto
thee just now, like the voice of the angel."

She never knew how far he was entirely under his own control when the
tendency to a state of trance was upon him, but she was anxious to take
advantage of the better mood.

She said, "And now what is required of you is that you should give me
up. No blessing" (she spoke strongly), "no blessing can come to you or
to your people until you do this one right thing."

He was again looking not at her but at the blank space of the shadowed
wall, 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 do
not take me, I will go alone and meet my death."

His head sank upon his breast with a groan such as a dumb creature in
the utmost pain might give. Almost immediately, to her surprise, he went
out.

She was left alone. She was under the impression that Smith had gone to
do her bidding, but she could not be sure. No faith in angelic vision,
no spell of psychic warfare, relieved the situation for her. The
external evidences of some crisis which he had undergone only produced
in her repulsion. Now, as ever since the temporary delusion that
accompanied her baptism, Susannah endeavoured to possess her soul free
from that sense of touch with mysterious powers which had worked such
havoc with the sanity of the members of this sect.

From the window she saw the prophet crossing the road in the direction
of his stables. He went, it was true, with slow, dreamy gait, but
steadily. 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 sudden
joy that had come to her this morning joined with her fear, and produced
panic of heart.

She computed the time it might take to harness the gay steeds, and tried
to give the rein of her expectation the utmost length. To her delight
she saw the prophet's horses and the light vehicle he drove upon long
journeys emerge into the square. A servant led them up and down. At
length she saw Smith returning, not with hasty steps, but as if against
his wil