of his king!

He hesitates when he sees searching brigands pursuing him. He
thinks of the king's letter. He reads it in order to then destroy
it. He reads it, and finds new courage. Stand up, warrior of Judah!
He does not destroy the letter. He does not give himself up to the
robbers. He fights and conquers. And so onward, onward! He bears
his sentence of death through a thousand dangers. ...

It is so God's will shall be obeyed through tortures unto death. ...

While Wik spoke, his divorced wife stood and listened to him. She
had gone out to the wood that morning, beaming and contented on her
husband's arm, most matron-like, respectable in every fold. Her
daughter and the apprentice carried the luncheon basket. The maid
followed with the youngest child. There had been nothing but
content, happiness, calm.

There they had lain in a thicket. They had eaten and drunk, played
and laughed. Never a thought of the past! Conscience was as silent
as a satisfied child. In the beginning, when her first husband had
slunk half drunk by her window, she had felt a prick in her soul.

Then she had heard that he had become the idol of the Salvation
Army. She was, therefore, quite calm. Now she had come to hear him.
And she understood him. He was not speaking of Uria; he was telling
about himself. He was writhing at the thought of his own sacrifice.
He tore bits from his own heart and threw them out among the
people. She knew that rider in the desert, that conqueror of
brigands. And that unappeased agony stared at her like an open
grave. ...

Night came. The wood was deserted. Farewell, grass and flowers!
Wide heaven, a long farewell! Snakes began to crawl about the tufts
of grass. Turtles crept along the paths. The wood was ugly.
Everybody longed to be back in the stone desert, the moon
landscape. That is the place for men.

***

Dame Anna Erikson invited all her old friends. The mechanics' wives
from the suburbs and the poorer scrub-women came to her for a cup
of coffee. The same were there who had been with her on the day of
her desertion. One was new, Maria Anderson, the captain of the
Salvation Army.

Anna Erikson had now been many times to the Salvation Army. She had
heard her husband. He always told about himself. He disguised his
story. She recognized it always. He was Abraham. He was Job. He was
Jeremiah, whom the people threw into a well. He was Elisha, whom
the children at the wayside reviled.

That pain seem