the invalid
slept, she wrote to Ephraim, telling him all that had befallen her. She
confessed to Ephraim the passion of hatred which had long tormented her,
but she added, "To-day I do not feel it; to-day, with the sweet voices
of the birds everywhere in my ears, I feel that if I could be beside you
again you could teach me to forgive as my husband forgave, for I do know
to-day that in forgiveness alone is the true triumph, the only healing.
I am more one with my husband's sect now than I ever was in heart and
hope. I long to see it triumphant; I long to see its enemies abashed;
but I will leave this people and come back to you, if you will have me,
for with regard to their religious faith my life with them is a lie."

The writing took so long that when she carried the letter again to the
tithing office to be stamped and sent, the post-bag of that day had
already gone. Later, when the office was closed to the public and Elder
Darling was alone, he took up the letter which Susannah had brought and
looked at it curiously. His eyes had caught the address. He was not sure
that he would have put it in the bag even if it had been in time, and
now it was clearly his duty to consider. His was a mind in which there
was no place for platonic friendship, and Susannah was obviously a most
desirable piece of property to the struggling Church. The Church had
provided the paper for this letter, must needs provide the stamp; he was
officially responsible to the Church. The elder had been an honest man
according to the average notions of honesty until within the last weeks,
when stress of circumstance had made him reconsider, not for himself but
for others, more than one rule of life, and obtain larger latitude. The
building up of the Church in her present sore strait was surely an end
to override small scruples. He acted now as an official, as a priest,
when, after a good many painful qualms of conscience, he opened the
letter. After having read its contents, he became convinced that it was
for the good of Susannah's own soul that it should not go.

The ground about Quincy had been drained; the town was comparatively
healthy; in a few days more some two thousand of the fugitives felt
again the pulse of life in their veins. Then they looked abroad and
clasped every man the hand of his neighbour, and said "Thanks be to
God," and even embraced one another in the joy of relief. History often
shows how exuberant is the joy of human nature a