The woman did so, and proved to be young and handsome.  Shefford had a thrill as he recognized her.  She was Ruth, who had been one of his best-known acquaintances in the hidden village.  She was pale, angry, almost sullen, and her breast heaved.  She had no shame, but she seemed to be outraged.  Her dark eyes, scornful and blazing, passed over the judge and his assistants, and on to the crowd behind the railing.  Shefford, keen as a blade, with all his faculties absorbed, fancied he saw Ruth stiffen and change slightly as her glance encountered some one in that crowd.  Then the prosecutor in deliberate and chosen words enjoined her to kiss the Bible handed to her and swear to tell the truth.  How strange for Shefford to see her kiss the book which he had studied for so many years!  Stranger still to hear the low murmur from the listening audience as she took the oath!

“What is your name?” asked Judge Stone, leaning back and fixing the cavernous eyes upon her.

“Ruth Jones,” was the cool reply.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Where were you born?” went on the judge.  He allowed time for the clerk to record her answers.

“Panguitch, Utah.”

“Were your parents Mormons?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a Mormon?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a married woman?”

“No.”

The answer was instant, cold, final.  It seemed to the truth.  Almost Shefford believed she spoke truth.  The judge stroked his chin and waited a moment, and then hesitatingly he went on.

“Have you—­any children?”

“No.”  And the blazing eyes met the cavernous ones.

That about the children was true enough, Shefford thought, and he could have testified to it.

“You live in the hidden village near this town?”

“Yes.”

“What is the name of this village?”

“It has none.”

“Did you ever hear of Fre-donia, another village far west of here?”

“Yes.”

“It is in Arizona, near the Utah line.  There are few men there.  Is it the same kind of village as this one in which you live?”

“Yes.”

“What does Fre-donia mean?  The name—­has it any meaning?”

“It means free women.”

The judge maintained silence for a moment, turned to whisper to his assistants, and presently, without glancing up, said to the woman: 

“That will do.”

Ruth was led back to the bench, and the woman next to her brought forward.  This was a heavier person, with the figure and step of a matured woman.  Upon removing her bonnet she showed the plain face of a woman of forty, and it was striking only in that strange, stony aloofness noted in the older men.  Here, Shefford thought, was the real Mormon, different in a way he could not define from Ruth.  This woman seated herself in the chair and calmly faced her prosecutors.  She manifested no emotion whatever.  Shefford remembered her and could not see any change in her deportment.  This trial appeared to be of little moment to her and she took the oath as if doing so had been a habit all her life.