“Will you quit the place to-night?” I said. “You’d better. By heaven, if you don’t, I’ll tell all the men in the village, and we’ll lynch you, as sure as your name is Brake.”
“I’ll go—I’ll go,” he groaned. “I swear never to trouble you again.”
“You ought to be hanged, you villain. Be off!”
He slunk away through the trees like a beaten dog; and I went home in a state bordering on despair. I found Elsie crying. She was sitting by the window as of old. I knew now why she gazed so constantly at the west. It was her Mecca. Something in my face, I suppose, told her that I was laboring under great excitement. She rose startled as soon as I entered the room.
“Elsie,” said I, “I am come to take you home.”
“Home? Why, I AM at home, am I not? What do you mean?”
“No. This is no longer your home. You have deceived me. You are a Mormon. I know all. You have become a convert to that apostle of hell, Brigham Young, and you cannot live with me. I love you still, Elsie, dearly; but—you must go and live with your father.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Minister’s Black Veil