The sleek elder, following his advantage, spoke again.  “The money given for tuition was given because of the ordinance of the prophet, and should in any case hardly belong to this lady if she is apostate.”

Smith had the tact to see his opportunity, and, moreover, it hurt him sharply, hurt him far more than it hurt Susannah, to hear her right to the privileges of the place called in question, to hear the opprobrious term “apostate” cast at her.  There were unbelievers in his community with whose hypocrisy or apostasy he could trifle, but he still had his faith and his inner circle of affections.  Susannah, standing friendless and penniless, appealed to all that was sacred in the memory of early days, while her beauty, her courage, her unbounded wrath, stimulated his love of power.  He spoke to the sleek elder in what was commonly called the prophet’s “awful voice,” rising, his blue eyes becoming black in their authoritative flash.

“Our sister Susannah Halsey, because of faithfulness when the Church was yet poor and unknown, and because of the faithfulness of her husband, who wears the martyr’s crown—­our sister Susannah Halsey, I say, is welcome to the hospitality of the Nauvoo House as long as she has remained and shall remain; and the money which has been given to her for the school shall be returned to her, and more shall be added to it, for she laboured faithfully.”

He had left behind his moment of sheepish distress; with the return of his formal phrases he assumed full prophetical state and escorted Susannah out of the office with a manner of pompous deference.  When they two stood alone together Susannah was aware that, although circumstances had not altered in the slightest, although she had just as much reason for extreme anger as a minute before, yet she could not summon the same haughty air of command.

“Will you get me the chaise and the money and let me go?”

“But in Carthage,” he asked kindly, “who will attend to your wants there and protect you?  I guess, sister, you haven’t much notion how difficult a lady like yourself travelling alone might find it to get along.  It isn’t among the Gentiles as with the Saints, where brotherly-kindness is the rule.  I guess you’d better go back to your room and think it over a day or two longer,” he said soothingly.  “I’d be very glad to take you and Emma out for a ride this afternoon if you’d be willing to go—­”

“Be quiet.”  Her words fell sharp and quick in the midst of his gentle tones.  “Make arrangements at once for me to go peaceably, or I will go out, if need be, to the middle of the Square and proclaim my wrongs, so that every woman and child in Nauvoo shall know what comes of trusting to you.”

She had chosen her threat carefully.  She knew well that he understood the force of object lessons, and that to have even a suspicion against his kindness, bred in the minds of the children would be exquisite pain to him.