don't. She's so
white you can look through her. She's grown thin, all in a week. She
doesn't eat. Oh, I know, because I've made it my business to find out.
It's no news to the women. But they'd like to see her die. And she will
die unless--"

"My God!" exclaimed Shefford, huskily. "I never noticed--I never
thought.... Joe, hasn't she any friends?"

"Sure. You and Ruth--and me. Maybe Nas Ta Bega, too. He watches her a
good deal."

"We can do so little, when she needs so much."

"Nobody can help her, unless it's you," went on the Mormon. "That's
plain talk. She seemed different this morning. Why, she was alive--she
talked--she smiled.... Shefford, if you cheer her up I'll go to hell for
you!"

The big Mormon, on his knees, with his hands in a pan of dough, and his
shirt all covered with flour, presented an incongruous figure of a man
actuated by pathos and passion. Yet the contrast made his emotion all
the simpler and stronger. Shefford grew closer to Joe in that moment.

"Why do you think _I_ can cheer her, help her?" queried Shefford.

"I don't know. But she's different with you. It's not that you're a
Gentile, though, for all the women are crazy about you. You talk to her.
You have power over her, Shefford. I feel that. She's only a kid."

"Who is she, Joe? Where did she come from?" asked Shefford, very low,
with his eyes cast down.

"I don't know. I can't find out. Nobody knows. It's a mystery--to all
the younger Mormons, anyway."

Shefford burned to ask questions about the Mormon whose sealed wife the
girl was, but he respected Joe too much to take advantage of him in a
poignant moment like this. Besides, it was only jealousy that made him
burn to know the Mormon's identity, and jealousy had become a creeping,
insidious, growing fire. He would be wise not to add fuel to it. He
rejected many things before he thought of one that he could voice to his
friend.

"Joe, it's only her body that belongs to--to.... Her soul is lost to--"

"John Shefford, let that go. My mind's tired. I've been taught so and
so, and I'm not bright.... But, after all, men are much alike. The thing
with you and me is this--we don't want to see HER grave!"

Love spoke there. The Mormon had seized upon the single elemental point
that concerned him and his friend in their relation to this unfortunate
girl. His simple, powerful statement united them; it gave the lie to his
hint of denseness; it stripped the truth naked. It was such a