had
been contending here was stronger upon her even than her anger and fear.

Smith got up and went to the window. His horses and buggy were still
parading.

"I guess I've changed my mind," he said. He did not care, it seemed, to
delude her, but he must still deceive himself. "I couldn't go against
the voice of the church council to that extent; it wouldn't be safe for
you or me; and besides, 'tisn't the Lord's will that you should go."

She recoiled, looking at him in steady reproach.

"Well, as I said before, I guess you can think it over for a few days."
This was his easy answer to her look, and he went out, slamming the
door.

CHAPTER V.

When that day began to wane Susannah was still sitting in the empty
curtained room. No plan which offered even a fair hope of escape had
occurred to her mind. Although in pictures of adventure her imagination
had been fertile, throwing out suggestions unbidden, her judgment would
have none of them. No one disturbed her. She was left in isolation, a
prey to dismal thoughts.

She saw the happy crowds dispersing in the Square from evening
recreation. There was nothing to hinder her from joining them. Sometimes
her sense of imprisonment seemed only a morbid dream, for on all sides
of the fair white city there was open ingress and egress for the
faithful and the stranger. It was hard to believe that at wharfs and on
the high roads fanatics watched for her, and yet after Smith's reluctant
avowal she dare not doubt it.

She saw evening fade over the broad semi-circle of the river, over the
multitude of cheerful homes that sloped to its edge. When darkness came
she found herself more than ever pressed and tormented by the grim
shapes of fear and remorse and despair. She had terrible reason to
fear, and felt as never before that she had brought this horrid
situation upon herself by joining and rejoining the prophet's following.
She had no hope now that Smith would relent.

Beyond the city, eastward toward the sun-rising, lay the home of
Ephraim's friendship, whither in the morning she had thought to bend her
steps. She saw it through the glad glamour of her recent knowledge that
he had not neglected her letters. All her desires fled to this thought
of his friendship, like birds flying home. All her fancies clustered
round it, like climbing flowers that caress and kiss the object they
enfold when some rude wind disturbs. Whenever she withdrew her mind from
its contemplat