“When they’re taken that way under Finney,” he said, as if meditating, “‘conviction’ commonly means conviction of sins—­their own sins, ye know, not other folk’s; and when they git up, if they’ve taken anything wrongfully they hev to restore it fourfold afore the conviction will leave off a-worrittin’ them.  I don’t know how ’tis among the Mormons.”  The last words were said in an undertone and he had dropped his eyes.  It would have required a brave man to treat Susannah to open sarcasm.

She stood looking from one to the other.  She still wore her girlish cottage bonnet, and as its fashion was, it had slipped backwards upon the amber ringlets that hung upon her neck; but the girlish look was fast passing from the face, the hair parting fell on either side of pale cheeks.

“Oh, as to thet, ’s fur as I know, one religion’s as good as another,” said the politic Biery.

Susannah looked at the fat, bright-eyed man who was no longer looking at her.  “I know” (her voice fell with a strange gentleness through the thickened atmosphere of the room) “that there are many malicious stories abroad about the dishonesty of our people which are not true.”

But as she went up the stair she remembered that she had heard of no case where reformation of character had been followed by the returning of the fourfold.  Most of these saints of the new sect had before their conversion been, like her husband, already God-fearing and righteous, but in cases where, like their leader, they had been reclaimed from evil courses, had they not been satisfied with offering the present and future to God, leaving the past?  She had heard of no case of restitution such as Finney insisted upon.

Susannah entered the low, wide room in which she lived.  The chimney from the lower room passed up and was always warm.  She went and laid her cold hands against the rough plaster that covered its bricks, and, being tired, she leaned, laying her cheek too against its warm surface.  The one candle cast but a faint light upon the chairs, the bed, the table.  The small panes of the window-glass were bare to the darkness without and the empty tree-branches.  The heavy latch of the closed door was fastened crookedly for lack of good workmanship.

Her unsatisfied mind ached for counsel, and her thought, roving over the world, could fix only on Ephraim as she had at first learned to know him, wise and quiet and kind.  The warm chimney seemed a poor thing to lean her head against while she felt that her faith was failing.  Then the remembrance of the shot Ephraim had fired and his callousness choked back her tears.

She waited an hour, two hours; then, becoming anxious on Halsey’s account, she borrowed a lantern and went across the fields to Knight’s farmhouse.

Quite a number of people had gathered.  Susannah met some of them coming from the house, but others were still there, standing about the fire in the kitchen.  She heard that the later arrivals had all been disappointed of the sight of Newell Knight in his fit.  Halsey had assumed authority, stating that it was indeed a case of possession, and that none but those who were strong in faith and in the power of prayer must come near the possessed.  The craving of the visitors for excitement was only fed by the sound of the young man’s voice, heard at short intervals.