of a wilderness there is salve for souls.

As he sat there brooding, or dreaming of the work he might yet do, there
stole into his senses that impalpable consciousness of another presence,
near, and coming nearer. Alert, silent, he rose, and as he turned he
heard the front gate click. In an instant he had extinguished lamp and
candle, and, stepping back into the hallway, he laid his ear to the
door.

In the silence he heard steps along the gravel, then on the porch. There
was a pause; leaning closer to the door he could hear the rapid,
irregular breathing of his visitor. Knocking began at last, a very
gentle rapping; silence, another uncertain rap, then the sound of
retreating steps from the gravel, and the click of the gate-latch. With
one hand covering the weapon in his coat-pocket, he opened the door
without a sound and stepped out.

A young girl stood just outside his gate.

"Who are you and what is your business with this house?" he inquired,
grimly. The criminal in him was now in the ascendant; he was alert,
cool, suspicious, and insolent. He saw in anybody who approached his
house the menace of discovery, perhaps an intentional and cunning
attempt to entrap and destroy him. All that was evil in him came to the
surface; the fear that anybody might forcibly frustrate his revenge--if
he chose to revenge himself--raised a demon in him that blanched his
naturally pallid face and started his lip muscles into that curious
recession which, in animals, is the first symptom of the snarl.

"What do you want?" he repeated. "Why do you knock and then slink away?"

"I did not know you were at home," said the girl, faintly.

"Then why do you come knocking? Who are you, anyway?" he demanded,
harshly, knowing perfectly well who she was.

"I am the postmistress at Nauvoo," she faltered--"that is, I was--"

"Really," he said, angrily; "your intelligence might teach you to go
where you are more welcome."

His brutality seemed to paralyze the girl. She looked at him as though
attempting to comprehend his meaning. "Are you not Mr. Helm?" she asked,
in a sweet, bewildered voice.

"Yes, I am," he replied, shortly.

"I thought you were a gentleman," she continued, in the same stunned
voice.

"I'm not," said Helm, bitterly. "I fancy you will agree with me, too.
Good-night."

He deliberately turned his back on her and sat down on the wooden steps
of the porch; but his finely modelled ears were alert and listening, and
wh