The reading of the letter acquainted Jane Withersteen with the fact that something within her had all but changed.  She sent no reply to Bishop Dyer nor did she go to see him.  On Sunday she remained absent from the service—­for the second time in years—­and though she did not actually suffer there was a dead-lock of feelings deep within her, and the waiting for a balance to fall on either side was almost as bad as suffering.  She had a gloomy expectancy of untoward circumstances, and with it a keen-edged curiosity to watch developments.  She had a half-formed conviction that her future conduct—­as related to her churchmen—­was beyond her control and would be governed by their attitude toward her.  Something was changing in her, forming, waiting for decision to make it a real and fixed thing.  She had told Lassiter that she felt helpless and lost in the fateful tangle of their lives; and now she feared that she was approaching the same chaotic condition of mind in regard to her religion.  It appalled her to find that she questioned phases of that religion.  Absolute faith had been her serenity.  Though leaving her faith unshaken, her serenity had been disturbed, and now it was broken by open war between her and her ministers.  That something within her—­a whisper—­which she had tried in vain to hush had become a ringing voice, and it called to her to wait.  She had transgressed no laws of God.  Her churchmen, however invested with the power and the glory of a wonderful creed, however they sat in inexorable judgment of her, must now practice toward her the simple, common, Christian virtue they professed to preach, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you!”

Jane Withersteen, waiting in darkness of mind, remained faithful still.  But it was darkness that must soon be pierced by light.  If her faith were justified, if her churchmen were trying only to intimidate her, the fact would soon be manifest, as would their failure, and then she would redouble her zeal toward them and toward what had been the best work of her life—­work for the welfare and happiness of those among whom she lived, Mormon and Gentile alike.  If that secret, intangible power closed its toils round her again, if that great invisible hand moved here and there and everywhere, slowly paralyzing her with its mystery and its inconceivable sway over her affairs, then she would know beyond doubt that it was not chance, nor jealousy, nor intimidation, nor ministerial wrath at her revolt, but a cold and calculating policy thought out long before she was born, a dark, immutable will of whose empire she and all that was hers was but an atom.

Then might come her ruin.  Then might come her fall into black storm.  Yet she would rise again, and to the light.  God would be merciful to a driven woman who had lost her way.