“Oh, forgive me, dearest,” she cried, and put out a little gloved hand to comfort him.  “I know, I know—­all the sweetness and goodness of your love, believe me.  See, I have kept always by me the little Bible you gave me on my birthday—­I have treasured it, and I know it has made me a better girl, because it makes me always think of your goodness—­but I couldn’t have gone there, Joel—­and it does seem as if you need not have gone—­and that marrying is so odious—­”

“You shall see how little you had to fear of that doctrine which God has seen fit to reveal to these good men.  I tell you now, Prue, I shall wed no woman but you.  Nor am I giving you up.  Don’t think it.  I am doing my duty and trusting God to bring you to me.  I know He will do it—­I tell you there is the spirit of some strange, awful strength in me, which tells me to ask what I will and it shall be given—­to seek to do anything, how great or hard soever, and a giant’s, a god’s strength will rest in me.  And so I know you will come.  You will always think of me so,—­waiting for you—­somehow, somewhere.  Every day you must think it, at any idle moment when I come to your mind; every night when you waken in the dark and silence, you must think, ’Wherever he is, he is waiting for me, perhaps awake as I am now, praying, with a power that will surely draw me.’  You will come somehow.  Perhaps, when I reach winter quarters, you will have changed your mind.  One never knows how God may fashion these little providences.  But He will bring you safe to me out of that Gentile perdition.  Remember, child, God has set his hand in these last days to save the human family from the ruins of the fall, and some way, He alone knows how, you will come to me and find me waiting.”

“As if you needed to wait for me when I am here now ready for you, willing to be taken!”

“Don’t, don’t, dear!  There are two of me now, and one can’t stand the pain.  There is a man in me, sworn to do a man’s work like a man, and duty to God and the priesthood has big chains around his heart dragging it across the river.  But, low, now—­there is a little, forlorn boy in me, too—­a poor, crying, whimpering, babyish little boy, who dreamed of you and longed for you and was promised you, and who will never get well of losing you.  Oh, I know it well enough—­his tears will never dry, his heart will always have a big hurt in it—­and your face will always be so fresh and clear in it!”

He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down into the face under the bonnet.

“Let me make sure I shall lose no look of you, from little tilted chin, and lips of scarlet thread, and little teeth like grains of rice, and eyes into which I used to wander and wonder so far—­”

She looked past him and stepped back.

“Captain Girnway is coming for me—­yonder, away down the street.  He takes me to Carthage.”

His face hardened as he looked over his shoulder.