rding to her works: in the cup which she
hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself,
and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she
saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no
sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and
mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire.'"

Ruth vacillated between fascination and disgust. The flickering
torches, the soughing wind, the lapping waves, the old, old words, lent
the denunciation a solemnity which transcended the bizarre mouthpiece.
She shook off the impression, however, and asked Shelby to take her
away.

"Yes; it's time to leave for the rally," he acquiesced. "I'll speak to
the Hilliards."

As they turned, they saw that Mrs. Hilliard's eyes were riveted on the
widow's in an hypnotic stare. In shrill singsong the woman was
declaiming:--

"'So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a
woman sit upon a scarlet beast, full of names of blasphemy, having
seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and
scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls,
having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations--'"

Whereupon Mrs. Hilliard suddenly stopped her ears and grovelled on her
knees full in the light of the torches, her shoulders quivering with
hysterical sobs. There was a ripple of sensation at the prominence of
the convert, and triumphant peals of "Saved by His precious blood,"
"Saved by the Lamb," "Look to Him, sister, look to Him," and the like.
Then big Joe Hilliard stolidly thrust himself into the ring, and,
raising the stricken woman, bore her away into the outer darkness.
Apart from the crowd, Hilliard shook his wife with rough kindness.

"Wake up, girl," he said. "Nightmare's over. I guess you need a dose
of camomile."

In the inky outskirts she presently threw off the obvious marks of her
hysteria, but by little signs another woman might read, Ruth saw hours
afterward that the spell possessed her still. Its gloom seemed to
overcast the entire evening. Either through insufficient advertising,
or the crass stupidity of the enfranchised of Eden Centre, who thought
less of their political enlightenment than the noisy saving of their
souls, Shelby's meeting proved a pitiful fiasco. Hardly a score had
gathered in the low-ceiled schoolhouse, fetid with reeking kerosene
lamps and wilting humanit