between boards--on top where they couldn't see me."

"Suppose the lumber had been set on fire, too! And you haven't had
anything to eat?"

"I don't want to eat. I'm only frightened to death at the wicked
Gentiles burning the island. I couldn't stay there all night, so I got
down and ran to your house."

"Of course, you poor child! But, Rosanne, where's your husband?"

The trembling creature stiffened herself and looked at Cecilia out of
the corners of her long eyes. "He's with Elizabeth Aiken."

The only wife of one husband did not know how to take hold of this
subject.

"But your father was there," she suggested. "How could you leave your
father and run the risk of never seeing him again?"

"I don't care if I never see him again. He said he was so discouraged he
didn't care what became of any of us."

Cecilia was going to plead the cause of domestic affection further,
but she saw that four step-mothers could easily be given up. She turned
helplessly to her husband who stood in the door.

"Poor thing! Ludlow, what in the world shall we do?"

"Put her to bed."

"Of course, Ludlow. But will anybody hurt you to-morrow?"

"There are two good guns on the rack over the chimney. I don't think
anybody will hurt me or her either, to-morrow."

"Rosanne, my dear," said Cecilia, trying to lift the relaxed soft body
and to open the stairway door behind her. "Come up with me right off. I
think you better be where people cannot look in at us."

Rosanne yielded and stumbled to her feet, clinging to her friend. When
they disappeared the young man heard her through the stairway enclosure
sobbing with convulsive gasps:

"I hate Elizabeth Aiken! I wish they would kill Elizabeth Aiken! I hate
her--I hate her!"

The lighthouse-keeper sat down again on his doorstep and faced the
prospect of taking care of a homeless Mormon. It appeared to him that
his wife had not warmly enough welcomed her or met the situation with
that recklessness one needed on Beaver Island. The tabernacle began to
burn lower, brands streaming away in the current which a fire makes.
It was strange to be more conscious of inland doings than of that vast
unsalted sea so near him, which moistened his hair with vaporous drifts
through the darkness. The garnet redness of the temple shed a huger
amphitheatre of shine around itself. A taste of acrid smoke was on his
lips. He was considering that drunken fishermen might presently begin to
rove, and he would be