ith intent to run after the wounded
man 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 down
the road Halsey was stepping into a chaise. Another man took the seat
beside him and they drove away.

Then she looked at Ephraim. He did not appear as though he felt his
guilt; he had the mien rather of one who was striving bravely to endure
hardship. Then indeed she felt that the gulf of thought must yawn wide
between them; she could even yet have pitied Ephraim's contrition, but
he was not contrite. In indignation she retired, sitting in the privacy
of her little bedroom.

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

"If," the letter read, "thou canst see thy way, dear friend, to hold
fast that thou hast in the house of thy friends, if thou canst see thy
way, by steadfast confession and by the grace of thy demeanour, to
strive among them for their conversion, it would be well while thou art
still so young to remain with them for a time--at least so I think. But
our prophet thinks, and I also greatly desire to think, that the strain
upon thy faith would be too great, that thou mightst fail; and
remembering that it has been revealed to him that our union has been
sealed in heaven, he thinks that thou wouldst do well to commit thy
tender life now to my keeping."

The phrase "and I greatly desire to think" was almost as strong as any
in a long letter to tell which way his delight would lie, and Susannah's
was not a mind upon which this indication of reserve force was thrown
away. She trusted, vaguely in thought but implicitly in heart, to that
which lay behind--something which did not alarm her, which in her inner
vision wore no warm nor obtrusive colouring, but which she knew to be
intense and of enduring quality. And she saw herself alone, beaten by
adverse winds and without other shelter.

Halsey touched upon the fact that Smith and his disciples (he did not
say himself) had suffered greatly from yesterday's ill-usage, and said
that, having given their message to the people, they were that day
leaving for a place called Fayette, in Seneca county, w