e they have huddled us
together at the point of the sword, until now to be a Mormon means to be
shut out from the world and shut in to--to what? To the prophet's
dreams; and some of them are good, and some of them are bad, and some of
them are mad; and let us thank Heaven that they are as good as they are,
for to go back to the Gentiles who shot down Angel and the children he
was teaching to pray, and your child in your arms, that would be the
baddest and maddest act of life." She rose up suddenly again. "Go!" she
cried. There was a flame of real anger in her eyes. "Since the wish is
in your heart, go! We believe now in strange doctrines. Two new
doctrines we have learned at Nauvoo. Do you know what they are? One is
'baptism of the dead.' If you get off safely, Susannah, and die in your
sins, one of us must be baptized again for you, so that you will be
saved in spite of yourself. But the _other_ doctrine is '_salvation by
the shedding of blood_.' Do you understand _that_ doctrine?"

"Indeed I do not."

"And you speak with a tone that says that you neither know nor care what
new things we have been learning. But you may have reason to care before
many hours are over."

She came near and whispered, "They teach us now that if a _man_ sin
wilfully and will not repent, it is better that a minister of the church
should slay him, for then his blood will make atonement for his soul."
She ceased to speak until she had thrust Susannah out of her door, and
her last words were in a whisper of awesome import. "Perhaps _a woman's
soul can be saved in the same way_."

Susannah was out again in the cheerful busy street. She made haste to
fulfil the one remaining call before she met her chaise at the hotel.
She felt that her last word was due to the member of the Danite band who
had saved her in her hour of need and who had avenged her husband's
blood.

To each of those who had made sacrifice for the sect, a lot of land in
the best part of the city had been awarded. Heber, Danite and apostle,
had built upon his lot, and there she found him at the back of the
cottage feeding a mare and foal which were tied in a small plot of
ragged grass. He was much older now than when she had first seen him;
daring and danger can lengthen time. He had the same indomitable
frankness in his dark eyes, but his face was hardened and fanaticism was
stamped thereon. It was a homely precinct, with utensils of house and
stable-work lying about. The mare