Susannah rose up with clenched hands and pitiful face, but she went out of the room, leaving the two men together. "Were you injured?" asked Ephraim of the stranger.
"Well, sir, I was bruised by being trampled on, but the gaoler got hold of me and dragged me into an iron cell and locked me in, and the next morning he came and let me out."
"That was a year ago," said Ephraim. "Have you been in Nauvoo since then?"
"Yes, I went back. I wanted to know, sir, what would come, and take my share of the suffering after seeing the prophet die so courageous; but, sir, the Church is sorely divided. I didn't like to say it before your lady, for I see that she's got some one she cares for amongst us, but there's a strong party among the apostles and elders that are worshippers of Baal, and are most evil in their conduct and practice, and are apostate, though they call themselves followers of the prophet. And Mr. Brigham Young is at the head of them. It's a bad thing that the Illinois militia is set out to fight against us and turn us out of the city without mercy, but it's a sorer thing that the greater part of our people, being ignorant, will follow Mr. Brigham Young; and he's bent on going west, sir, into the heart of the Rocky Mountains, where he can set up a kingdom of his own. His teaching is against good doctrine in two respects; he says that they will wax strong there until they can avenge the blood of their brethren who have been hunted and slain, and that the elders and apostles will live like the patriarchs of old, and have many wives, in order to build up the Church."
"And has the other party in your sect no strength to resist?"
"Very little strength, sir, except that God is on the side of the righteous; but Mrs. Smith, the prophet's widow, with his sons and many hundreds of us, will not give in to the evil, but will stay in Illinois and Missouri in face of the worst that persecution can do, for it was thereabouts that the prophet said that the Holy City should be, and he gave us no word to kill and destroy our fellow-men; and although perhaps he was led away and sinned sometimes as other men do, it is a scandalous lie to say that he thought to teach wickedness and falsehood to his Church."
"I wonder," asked Ephraim within himself, "if that is true, or what strange secret that troubled soul took with him to the other side of death?"
In the evening after the stranger was gone Susannah sat with Ephraim in the old doorway. Before them, mid the harvest fields, winding over hill and dale, lay the long white road which led to the hill of Smith's early visions—the road on which Susannah had set forth with Angel Halsey on her wedding journey.
"You are a-weary, wife, to-night," said Ephraim. He smoothed the hair upon her brow. "You have exhausted yourself with long weeping, and yet—"
He did not say, "Have you reason to bemoan this man's tragic end?" for he knew that more sacred memories had caused the tears; of these some faint jealousy rose in his breast and kindness sealed his lips.