stood before her, not as the lauded leader, not as the
interesting martyr, but claiming recognition merely as a man, a large,
coarse man feeling his own coarseness in her presence, a sinful man
feeling his own sinfulness, but at the same time a man with a warm
heart, which was now so beating with emotions of shame and pity and glad
recognition that at first he could not speak, could not raise his eyes
to hers until the warmth of his feeling rid him of self-consciousness.

Susannah had not expected to awake this emotion. She desired nothing
less than condolence; and yet she was touched by seeing his huge
strength broken down for the moment by her appearing. When he spoke his
voice was hoarse.

"I--I told him--it was my earnest command to him not to go where there
was danger."

Halsey's name was not spoken, but all through that interview Smith
appeared to be haunted by his presence. "He was the best man amongst
us," he said.

"My husband is gone." Susannah hoped by the reticence of her tone to
ward off further excess of sympathy. "I am no longer bound to your
Church, Mr. Smith. I should not be honest if I did not tell you that I
hold myself free."

He faced her frankly, but with a glance of searching pain. "It must seem
a rather poor trade I've chosen if there ain't no truth in it."

"But I did not accuse you of not believing it, Mr. Smith."

"Do you think I do?"

She remembered the day that he had first shown her his peep-stone with
simple, childlike importance. How young they had both been! The sunshine
on the hill, the voice of the golden woodpecker, the scent of the fallen
beech leaves, came back to her. A decade of terrible years had passed
over them both, and he stood seeking her faith just as simply.

"I have tried very hard to understand you, Mr. Smith, but I do not. I
think you must believe most of what you claim for yourself, if not all.
If you had made your story up for the love of power you wouldn't always
be wanting the people to get a better education; you would, as they say
of the Roman Catholic priests, want to keep the people ignorant."

"Go on," he said. She found that he was looking at her with intense
sadness, but there was not a shadow of evasion in the eager look that
met her steadily.

She went on, looking gravely into his face. "I do not believe that your
story was false, Mr. Smith, but it seems to me that you must suspect now
that your visions and the gold plates were hallucination,