Then he walked off into the night, down through the village, past the light of open doors, and through the voices that sounded from them, out on to the bare bench of the mountain—­his old refuge in temptation—­where he could be safe from submitting to what his soul had forbidden.  He had meant to take up a cross, but before his very eyes it had changed to be a snare set for him by the Devil.

He stayed late on the ground in the darkness, winning the battle for himself over and over, decisively, he thought, at the last.  But when he went home she was there in the doorway to meet him, still silent, but with eyes that told more than he dared to hear.  He thought she had in some way divined his struggle, and was waiting to strengthen the odds against him, with her face in the light of a candle she held above her head.

He went by her without speaking, afraid of his weakness, and rushed to his little cell-like room to fight the battle over.  As a last source of strength he took from its hiding-place the little Bible.  And as it fell open naturally at the blood-washed page a new thing came, a new torture.  No sooner had his eyes fallen on the stain than it seemed to him to cry out of itself, so that he started back from it.  He shut the book and the cries were stilled; he opened it and again he heard them—­far, loud cries and low groans close to his ear; then long piercing screams stifled suddenly too low, horrible gurglings.  And before him came the inscrutable face with the deep gray eyes and the shining lips, lifting, with love in the eyes, above a gashed throat.

He closed the book and fell weakly to his knees to pray brokenly, and almost despairingly:  “Help me to keep down this self within me; let it ask for nothing; fan the fires until they consume it! Bow me, bend me, break me, burn me out—­burn me out!”

In the morning, when he said, “Martha, the harvest is over now, and I want you to go north with me,” she prepared to obey without question.

He talked freely to her on the way, though it is probable that he left in her mind little more than dark confusion, beyond the one clear fact of his wish.  As to this, she knew she must have no desire but to comply.  Reaching Salt Lake City, they went at once to Brigham’s office.  When they came out they came possessed of a document in duplicate, reciting that they both did “covenant, promise, and agree to dissolve all the relations which have hitherto existed between us as husband and wife, and to keep ourselves separate and apart from each other from this time forth.”

This was the simple divorce which Brigham was good enough to grant to such of the Saints as found themselves unhappily married, and wished it.  As Joel Rae handed the Prophet the fee of ten dollars, which it was his custom to charge for the service, Brigham made some timely remarks.  He said he feared that Martha had been perverse and rebellious; that her first husband had found her so; and that it was doubtless for the good of all that her second had taken the resolution to divorce her.  He was afraid that Brother Joel was an inferior judge of women; but he had surely shown himself to be generous in the provision he was making for the support of this contumacious wife.