The choice epithets of Bishop Langley on this occasion can form no part of this record. Suffice it to say that they embodied rather the ecclesiastical than the Christian spirit, and both spirit and epithets were imitated from his superiors in authority.
He glanced towards the school-house windows with a mingled feeling of hatred, revenge and remorse. In that little square adobe hovel was the woman for whom he would give more than life itself, and down the road went the man who dared to interfere between him and his dearest object. The thought that Sister Miles might have witnessed his humiliation tortured him to the quick, and his first impulse was to wreak summary vengeance on its cause. But there was rather too much personal risk about this to render it an attractive expedient just then, and he felt no doubt of finding his opportunity. On second thought, timid women like Sister Miles always held their hands over their ears when men quarreled in their hearing, and refrained from looking at the contestants for fear of witnessing something shocking. He would go home and wait until school was dismissed, and then, with whatever result, make a final effort to bring the pretty widow to terms.
As he turned away he heard the children’s voices singing merrily their lesson of the State Capitals:— “The Eastern States we first will mention, six of them in number. The state of Maine, Augusta, on the Kennebec River,” etc.
This evidence that the teacher was employed with her duties reassured him and he paused to listen. Ever and anon there was a break in the singing and the gentle voice of the woman who thus late in life had enthralled him, came to him like soft thrilling melody. It calmed him. If she would but say the one word which, in spite of his hopes to the contrary, he seemed to have a foreboding she would not say, he believed for the moment that he might feel and actually be at peace with the world and with himself. He might be able to shift his course from among the snags and shoals where he had been battling so long, back to the normal and prudent highway which his father and other men he had once admired, had traveled without disaster. His thoughts were far from being well-defined, but he was, at least, half conscious of a plan by which the “pretty widow,” as Hagar was now commonly called in Zion, was to aid him in attaining a more comfortable altitude than he then enjoyed. The “privileges” of the latter-day Gospel had begun to pall upon him at the time he married Amelia, but since he met the young stranger he had grown cold and formal with the celestial partners of his joys. Hagar’s declination of the privileged estate, and the persistency with which she avoided him, not only gave zest to his pursuit but rendered her in his eyes a superior being. Had she succumbed like the rest she would have sunk to their level. It was her fidelity to herself that exalted her.
As he still hesitated between returning home and going into the school to bring the matter to a crisis there and then, he tried to imagine what he would do in case of her final and absolute refusal, even after all the concessions and pledges he was prepared to make. He had noted more than once when looking into Hagar’s hazel eyes a strange and palpable likeness to that unhappy woman, Hope Vincent, whom he had deserted, and who in turn deserted him, driven to distraction by his domestic chaos. And he now wondered if this gentle creature, who in her gentleness also was like what Hope had once been, could convey such withering scorn and disgust in a look, as characterized the last glance Hope ever bent on him? For that look, as for the woman who gave it, he had thought and cared nothing heretofore, but both haunted him now; and combat the superstition as he would he saw in this an evil omen. At length, impatient and wavering, he obeyed his strongest impulse, entered, dismissed the school and remained alone with her.
Hagar, who had put on her bonnet and cloak before the last of the scholars had departed, lingered only to arrange the books and papers on her desk. She was longing to be gone, and shook with fear.
Langley spoke softly:
“I hope you were not frightened by the incident between Brother Spencer and myself. Did it startle you? I could not brook his presence here with you. I know I was wrong to show my anger to the miserable pauper, but nothing save death can come betwixt you and me! I give you my word, dear Sister, that nothing of the kind shall happen again, in your presence.”
Hagar was terrified.
She felt insecure in the presence of this giant whom she could not help regarding as a low and common man, and was trying to frame an evasive answer to escape an interview she had long been dreading. What could she say?...She had received, the day previous, a note from Brigham Young’s Secretary inviting her on behalf of the President to attend a family party at the “Lion House” this very evening, and she had promised some of the President’s daughters that she would come soon after school was dismissed to take supper with them and direct a final rehearsal of their music before the party began. Here, she thought, was a means of raising the siege.
“I take little interest in men’s quarrels,” she said, hurriedly closing her desk, and going to the stove on the pretence of making all secure, “except to wonder why they are not always settled without resorting to blows. You must excuse me Bishop Langley; I have promised to go early to the Lion House to rehearse music for the party to-night. Are there any directions you wished to give me?”
“Only a minute, Sister, only a minute,” he urged. “I am not here to direct, but to plead—”
She interrupted him:
“I beg you not to return to that subject. I must go—I cannot hear you.”
He stood between her and the door, without any thought of using force to prevent her exit, but still determined that she should remain and hear him.
“Stay one moment, I entreat you!” he exclaimed.
She paused involuntarily, impressed by his singular humility. “You see before you a miserable, dejected wretch, who loves you, worships you!”
She tried to pass him, saying impatiently:
“Bishop Langley, this is wrong. Let me pass; you are too brave a man to insult a helpless woman.”
“Too brave? Yes, and for the first time brave enough to love one. You were not safer at your mother’s breast than here with me. Even if you reject me, scorn me, denounce me, I swear before Heaven not to come nearer than I now stand, and to let you pass freely when you have heard my story.”
“But, if I will not?”
“In pity, you cannot refuse.”
“It will be useless. I can never love you.”
“You love another, then! the President, eh?”
“What folly! No; a thousand times, no.”
“You would not love or marry a polygamist?”
“Never!”
“You do not love this Spencer?”
“Bishop Langley, do you know what you are saying?”
“Full well,” he replied, trying to restrain his eagerness, which was being wrought up by his emotions.
“You love him, then; he, this pauper stripling, is my rival!”
“You are wrong, I say; I love no man on earth!”
“Well then, your heart is free. Bestow it on him who will prize it most. The ideal husband is a being who can neither deceive nor suffer deception; an ideal wife the same, and such a state can only be attained by those who truly love. But what is love? It is sacrifice. You taught me the lesson. For you I am prepared to sacrifice everything on earth!....”
“No, no, Bishop Langley; what you say is all in vain. You have heard me, my answer will forever be the same; I cannot love you. Therefore desist, and let me pass!”
“Stay,—stay,” he said, detaining her. “You are more stubborn than destiny. But love will pierce bronze or adamant, itself; mine shall pierce you. Listen!” He leant towards her as he spoke, making minute gestures with one hand upon the other. Hagar paused and regarded him with pity.
“This cankered life I have led had almost blasted my soul when God sent an angel to redeem me. I have made a fortune but have no one to share it with me. I am a lonely beggar doomed to life-long misery unless the angel reaches her hand to save me. My life is a farce. It is because I have cared for nobody, have loved nothing, that such an existence has been tolerable thus long. I loathe it now because I have seen you, because I worship you. No; do not speak, do not ask to leave me until you hear what I will do. I have done wrong, gone astray, shown myself a villain; but I shall be a different man hereafter, I am prepared to relinquish, to abandon everything that connects me with this loathsome life!”
“Abandon the wives and children you are bound to provide for and protect!” exclaimed Hagar, raising her hands in amazement.
“Why not? The law and my conscience approve. I shall not leave them destitute—no, I can leave them all rich, and have a fortune still for you. The property I own here will in a few years be worth a thousand dollars where it is now worth one. They will have more if I go than if I stay. See, then, it is not only to accept the man that loves you and can give you everything the world covets, it is to save him and them. When I wooed you as a Mormon I loved you, but you were not then what you are now, in my sight. I have suffered, I call God to witness, as few men suffer in this world, and have thought in bitter agony many a time that a door of escape might at length be opened to me. You have the power to open such a door. Have you not the will to save me? Look! you shall return to your friends and tell them of my words; ask the advice of your parents, your former pastor or priest, of anybody in whom you have confidence. I will come to you soon, when I have arranged all here. But I am lost if you fail me—Oh! say that you pity me, say that you will save me!”
The Bishop paused, bowing his head on his breast. His passionate appeal had only served to deepen Hagar’s abhorrence of him. She wondered if he had not made those protestations in suing for Amelia’s hand: she thought of his broken vow to his first wife, and her unpitied wretchedness. Her interest in the situation was mingled with a sense of keen alarm. She saw that he determined to have an answer, yet she dared not make the one she wished to give. At length she spoke.
“You must give me time to consider—you shall send me to my friends as you suggest, and I will consult with them, and follow their advice.”
“There is hollowness and deception in what you say!” he exclaimed. “You mean to elude me, to betray me. But, no matter! You have heard me—you know I have spoken the truth—I now leave you to decide as you will. But remember, I have not told you a tithe of my love; I have not hinted at the consuming passion you have kindled in my heart. My fate is in your hands; I must abide your pleasure, even though it be my damnation!...”
“May I pass, then?” asked Hagar, eagerly.
“Yes, I have detained you too long.” said the Bishop, humbly stepping aside.
Hagar felt a sudden tremor as she flitted by him and out into the wintry air. She drew her cloak about her and walked on rapidly in the direction of the Lion House. She lacked the courage to go to Sister Eliza’s to make any preparations for the party at the President’s. On two points she was fully determined: Never to return to Bishop Langley’s house; and not to be seen that evening except by the daughters of the President with whom she had promised to rehearse their music.
Several minutes elapsed after her exit before the Bishop moved. The words he had spoken now began to seem like tangible things, and to grate upon his brain as he recalled them. The incandescent stream of his fervor began to resolve itself into cold crystals, whose rough edges scratched his tongue.
Perhaps, after all, he was laboring under a delusion, for was it possible such flaming protestations could be so rife and willing at one moment and thus lagging and stubborn the next? He had given her leave to betray him if she pleased, but there was now about the thought that she might do so the same nakedness and inquietude as characterised the rest of the interview in retrospect. Unable to resist the current of his emotions, anticipation had charmed him onward to the scene he had just enacted; the moments of its duration had thrilled him with a hitherto unknown and undefined sensation, akin to that experienced by one who has staked his all on a die’s cast: but the sequel was unutterably bitter. He knew that he had lost, yet like the gambler, clung to the hope that he should still win.
Meanwhile the pretty widow must be forestalled at the President’s. Her unsupported denunciation would, he thought, count for little against his record and direct denial. Indeed he felt no doubt of his ability to ridicule her into silence. But that was not all he desired. He had meant all he had said to her, and if she chose to slight his magnificent offer, he must seek to be avenged. He had his doubts about the practicability of coercion in her case, but knew that the President was an adept at persuasion, and thought he might count upon his help. He would, therefore, drive round and have another chat with him.
It was nearly five o’clock, and the mountains were growing dark in the early dusk of winter, when he drove up to the President’s gate. Having hitched his horse to the long chain that ran through a line of posts at the curb-stone, he passed through the narrow gate in the high wall, asking the elder in the guard-room if Brother Brigham was in his office.
“Yes, he is there waiting for you,” replied the tall, lean elder, with a cork leg, who was at that time the watch-dog of the palace.
“Waiting for me?” asked the Bishop in surprise.
“Yes, sir,—he sent for you half an hour ago.”
“Then I must have crossed the messenger on my way,” replied the Bishop, feeling a slight uneasiness as he went in.
He found the President alone. He was seated near a table reading, habited, as usual, in a loose-fitting black coat, a colored handkerchief about his neck, spectacles on nose, and on his head rather a broad-brimmed hat lined with green on the nether side of the rim.
“Well, Brother Edwin,” said the President, familiarly, “You are prompt enough at obeying a summons, though sometimes slow about coming of your own accord.”
“Perhaps so, Brother Brigham,” Langley replied, as he shook hands and took a chair, “but this time I am here of my own accord, for your messenger has not seen me—I only heard of him at your gate. Anything special?” He judged by the President’s manner that he had not been sent for from any unfriendly motive, and felt easier as he asked this question, quickly followed by:
“Any new development along the Hot Spring road?”
“No, we won’t say anything about that at present. I wanted to have a word about this pretty widow, Sister Miles. It’s time she was married.” This last remark was uttered with that superb complacency of which the Mormon President was so complete a master. Langley was amazed.
“You think so?” he asked, dubiously.
“I am sure of it. You have had a fair chance, but she don’t want you;” Langley started, and gazed strangely at the President, who went on—“So I’ve selected a husband for her—” Langley interrupted him.
“Yourself, I suppose?” He did not succeed in wholly concealing the sneer.
“You guess badly to-day, Brother Edwin. No. Though you have taken a wife later by some months than I, you want her and I don’t. I mean Brother Spencer.” His affected urbanity was sufficiently irritating to have caused the Bishop to insult, if not to strike, a lesser personage. But he controlled his anger, and said with a forced smile:
“You seem to know all about my wants and the vanity of them, Brother Brigham. May I ask who has been informing you?”
“Herself. She seems to be a straightforward young woman, and had the good sense to come straight to headquarters with her grievance. She left me a few minutes before you came in.”
“What did she say?” asked Langley, with obvious difficulty.
“In effect, that she could not remain any longer at your house and would never consent to marry you. She’s about the smartest young woman I know of. She’s pretty, too, and must have come from well-to-do and educated people. We must go slow with her—especially you, Brother Edwin; she’s not the kind to be fooled with. I’ve agreed to give her a temporary home, and if she won’t have Brother Spencer, why I can’t say at present what I will do.”
“Brother Brigham—you must excuse me—” said Langley rising, but striving to suppress his agitation, “I have listened as long as I can to this talk—every word of it is cutting me like a knife. To you I know it’s a light matter—a good joke—but you see, it’s no joke to me, for I love that woman; and what’s more, I mean to have her, or no man shall on this earth!” He raised his clenched fist, his eyes flashed, and his voice trembled with rage. “Do you prefer to please Spencer rather than me? Can you so love one on the brink of apostasy, and will she take him at your request?”—he gave the rein to his feelings.
By this time the President had taken off his spectacles, and was leaning back in his chair regarding the agitated Bishop with an expression of blank astonishment.
“Sit down, Brother Edwin,” he presently said, composedly. “You are getting excited. Sit down. I quite forgot I had not heard your side of the story.”
This remark had a soothing effect upon the Bishop’s nerves, and he resumed his chair with a much calmer aspect.
“You asked me so many questions at once,” continued the President, “I have forgotten them all. Suppose you begin again.”
“The whole matter is summed up in a few words. I don’t want to offend you, Brother Brigham, as you know well enough; but I love this woman and shall not submit to any arrangement that deprives me of her. Of course, so far you can decide between Spencer and me. But whoever my rival may be, he must reckon with me when all is said and done by other parties. As to my side of the case, it is simply this: I have told this woman I love her and want to marry her. She has refused, and comes to you to repeat her rejection of me; to emphasize it, in short; her coming to you thus places her much at your discretion: with your aid I believe I can obtain her consent. If you fail me,—well I’m pretty used to paddle my own canoe, and—”
“There, there, Edwin,” said the President, interrupting in a persuasive tone. “Don’t stir up strife. I’ll look into this matter. I don’t care to bring authority to bear too heavily on Sister Miles even to favor you; but if you are so terribly in love, I presume I’ll have to think it over. We may, however, have a reckoning of a new kind if we carry authority too far with her, for it’s certain she comes of good stock, and her folks may have influence.”
“If that is all, Spencer can tell you who they are,” the Bishop replied.
“Have you mentioned it to him?”
“Yes, soon after her arrival, but he put me off. I believe he has been in love with her all along.”
“If he is at his desk ask him to step here a moment.”
Bishop Langley obeyed promptly. He found Spencer busy at his desk in the inner office. They returned together.
“We are holding a conference on the subject of Sister Miles, and want your help, brother Charles,” said President Young. “Can you throw any light on her pedigree, and inform us whether she has any uncles in the Senate, or cousins in the House? in short who and what her relations may be? If I remember rightly, you said her father was one of the devil’s Ministers?”
“He was a parson of the Unitarian persuasion. But she was only his adopted daughter. I believe she was an orphan, I am not sure.”
“What name, and how much of a following?” asked the President.
“He was called Dr. Taine—” at this name Langley started—“and to judge by his church—his home and so forth, for I never attended his service,” continued the Elder, not noticing Langley, “I should say he must have a rich and numerous following.”
“She was called, Miss Taine then, when you first saw her? What was her given name? I have never heard it,” asked the President with unconcealed curiosity.
“I have promised her that I would not mention that,” said Spencer.
“No matter, I must hear it. Come, out with it.”
Spencer paused a moment, the impulse to rebel against the autocrat rising like a torrent in his heart. He forced it back and answered:
“Her name is Hagar.”
Langley’s cheek, already blanched, grew deadly pale. He repeated the name in a whisper as he averted his face to conceal for a moment his intense agony. He wheeled about suddenly to clutch at the last straw of hope, both of his companions supposing that the frenzy of his passion was the cause of his strange look.
“When and where did she marry the young officer named Miles?” he asked, grimly.
“Must I answer?” asked Spencer, addressing Brigham Young.
“Yes. Let’s have the whole story.”
“Well, then, she was never married to such a man. She eloped with a southern spy named Lamont alias Smiles, and the child she buried on the plains was his—”
At this moment Langley, who had been pierced as by a dagger at the sound of her name, sunk upon the floor, crying out in a faint voice:
“Oh! my God!”
Hagar continued to reside in the family of the President during the rest of the winter, and was at a loss to account for the sudden cessation of the Bishop’s suit, and the state of absolute tranquility in which she found herself from the very day of her arrival under the prophet’s roof. She thought it likely that Brigham Young had interposed in her behalf, and felt very grateful to him for the peace she now enjoyed.
Bishop Langley kept his secret, and neither the President nor Spencer could ascribe a cause for his breaking down as he did. It was thought by many, that Langley’s infatuation for the girl had unsettled his reason. Since his interview with Brigham Young he had remained almost constantly at home in a state which cast a gloom over his household, and called forth many characteristic comments from the neighbors. Some averred that Sister Miles was a witch who ought to be burnt for the public safety; others held that she must be an evil spirit whom Satan had sent to tempt the leading lights of Zion and “bedevil their wits,” as an old crone, who noted the change in the Bishop, put it. It was well for her that her limited ability in music and “reading and writing” had obtained for her a place of safety, for she would not have been free from serious danger in a more exposed position. She worked on cheerfully and patiently, giving good value for all she received, and longing for the time when she might be able to return to the East. That hope, though not a strong one, still sustained and gave her courage.
“Well, well,” said Brigham Young to Spencer a day or two after Langley’s painful exhibition, “I have known of the finest horse in a band being driven to death by a gad-fly; but I never expected to see one of the most level-headed men in the church driven mad by a butterfly.”
Spencer had been called into the sanctum to take down in short-hand some official letters the prophet wished to dictate, and merely said:
“It was very strange: I fear Bishop Langley was not well.”
“Perhaps not. Some are sick in body, some in their minds, and still others in their souls, and it often happens that they are sick all through: such, for instance, is the condition of the apostate. He is a rotten carcass without any soul in him, fit only to be thrown out for dogs to gnaw at.”
The young man felt the force of this fling keenly enough, and fully realized that there was something back of it. For a second his face blanched slightly and he hung his head, but almost instantly his heart came back and he experienced a vague, undefined satisfaction in guessing the prophet’s purpose. The passing sense of fear gave place to calm defiance.
“The man, or woman, who will apostatize from the House of Israel is thereby blotted out from the Book of Life, and shall exist no more forever. The curse shall follow him all the days of his miserable existence, and when he sinks into his grave he shall pass to everlasting darkness and everlasting death.”
Spencer deliberately set down this soliloquy, and then rehearsed the alphabet of Pitman’s system in sheer abstraction.
“Lay down that pencil and listen to me.” There was a tone and manner of absolute authority about the Mormon President which had cowed and coerced many a stronger and older man than Spencer.
“I have obeyed, sir, and am at your service.”
“That’s right. Now, Brother Charles, I’m going to give you some good advice. You have spent the greater part of your life about this office and I have known you from your cradle. Now, I hear, and have good reason to believe, that you are acting strangely of late. You fancy that you’re so smart you can just scuttle out and shift for yourself. I don’t know what you intend, but I can tell you what you’ll do—you’ll come to grief. Your father and mother are alarmed about you. You want an anchor; you ought to marry and settle down—you’re earning twice as much as I was when I married my first wife. But I expect you are touched also by the butterfly madness; you forget that she not only walked but ran into the spider’s parlor, and that your sighs can never penetrate the walls of the Lion House. And yet, you might become my son-in-law,—who knows? The devil has been paying off his debt to me in this article, and he may yet add you, with all your cleverness, to the list. Sister Miles is not the kind for a two-room cottage and third pick of Tithing office stores. If you want her you’ll have to get as rich as Brother Edwin. She will never marry anything short of a rich bishop, unless she takes it into her head to run off with a stage-driver, and she seems too serious for that. But I have my eye on her, and you know what that means.”
“What does it mean? That you will marry her?”
“Well, Brother Charles, how does that strike you? How would such an event appear to eyes growing green with the venom of apostasy? Aha! you see I’ve found you out! And now I’m going to make short work of you.”
The gong rang out shrilly and the Kanaka appeared instantly at the side door.
“I ought to send you to a dungeon for repentance; but I’m going to deal kindly with you. You can wait, George, and listen to all that’s said.”
Spencer sprang to his feet when the Kanaka entered, but he resumed his chair and bent his steady gaze upon the President.
“How many other young fools, male and female, have taken like you the path that leads straight to the devil across lots?”
“President Young,” said Spencer calmly, “I do not understand you.”
“How many others are going to the medicine man of the 19th Ward for comfort and advice?”
“I know nothing about what others do or where they go. As for myself, I have made no secret of my visits to Dr. Robinson. I have gone there in broad daylight. He was my intimate friend before he left the church. We met soon after my return last fall, and I am free to confess that, in spite of his apostasy which I deplored and resented at the time it occurred, I have relaxed the bitterness I felt towards him, and respect him as an honest man. He works hard and does much good amongst the poor. He devotes himself like a true man to his wife and pretty children, and meddles with nobody. Therefore, I see no good reason why I, his old friend, should either despise or ignore him.”
“Most sweet, young man! Do you not know that the Latter-Day Saint who can so sweetly relax his bitterness towards the deadly enemies of Israel, is only fit to be classed with them? I like your candor: Better than anything else could, it shows me that the devil has begun to fasten his net about you, and unless we can save you by radical measures you are doomed to damnation. Do not ‘relax’ your candor till you have answered briefly a few questions I shall ask you. I have noticed your budding apathy; the bloom of which is always apostasy. So far it is not of the vicious type. It is a restless uncertainty rather than a fixed purpose. You are afflicted with three complaints: You are in love with Sister Miles, that’s one; you think yourself fearfully smart, that’s two; and you think the priesthood a parcel of old fools, that’s three———”
“I may be eaten up with my own conceit—as to that I am, perhaps, not able to judge; but the last malady I deny. I have never by word or act shown the slightest disrespect for the priesthood.”
“Then the possession of Sister Miles would be a balm for all your woes?”
“I decline to answer. I have never spoken to the lady on the subject of love. But, whatever my thoughts may be I hold them sacred to myself.”
“She cares nothing about the Church; you brought her here unconverted, and she awaits only the opportunity to shake the dust of Zion from her feet. Shall you follow her to hell when she departs?”
“I apprehend that her course will lie towards a very different haven. But as to my following her:—Who can tell what he may do in the mysterious future?”
“Have you talked on this subject with your friend the pill-maker?”
“If you mean Dr. Robinson I should like to assure you once for all, that he is in no wise to blame for what you find objectionable in me or in my conduct. He never sought me—I forced myself upon him. Whatever I confided to him of my thoughts or intentions I did against his expressed objection. His only advice to me was to be faithful to my convictions—”
“Yes, when he saw they were bearing you in his direction! Did you not say at his door the other night, ‘The President and priesthood fatten while the people starve’?”
“I did not.”
“Did you not say, ‘Zion and hell have become synonymous?’”
“I did not.”
“Well, then, the voice was his, and it was by such phrases that he sought to keep you ‘true to your convictions,’ it was by these noble sentiments that your ‘bitterness became relaxed.’”
“President Young,” said Spencer, rising and looking steadily into the prophet’s spectacles, “you have been deceived. Whoever told you that such words were spoken by me or in my presence, lies. As for Dr. Robinson, I have only heard kind words from him about yourself and the church in general. He wants to live at peace here, and seeks to avoid those themes that create ill-feeling. If you will let me confront the false witness who has reported these things I will make him confess his shame.”
“Be calm, Brother Charles, your defence cannot save an apostate from hell-fire. You’d better attend to your own case, and leave the pill-maker to the wrath of the Lord.”
“Left to that I should have no fear about his safety. It is the spite and malice of men who bear false-witness and strike in the dark; against these he must be warned.”
“And you will bear the warning?”
“Perhaps———”
Spencer paused. A dreadful apprehension smote him like a sudden blow.
“Young man, you are a fool! If you do not mind, you will follow the will-o’the-wisp into the pit of destruction. Leave idle romancing and consider your substantial advantages; you shall have the woman and continue in the path of promotion in the priesthood, or you shall be cast out, and left to the buffetings of Satan. It is not my custom to bargain with erring servants of the Lord, but you have given such good promise in the cause of the Gospel, that I offer you these alternatives in the hope that you will choose wisely for yourself. On the one hand lie, prosperity, influence, and authority here, and exceeding great glory in the world to come. On the other, is the desert of the Gentiles, where the Lord is not known, and the vengeance that pursues the steps of the apostate. Choose for yourself.”
“You will allow me time to consider?”
“If you need time for that, my lad, you are lost. If you are not for us, you are against us. Answer instantly.”
“It is a bargain, you say. But you offer a condition you could not fulfill.”
“You mean to belittle my authority? It is plain I have done too much—that I have trusted you too far. But no matter. Your conduct now shall be your answer; and, when next you come to me, come on your knees!”
The Mormon President rose with dignity and passed in front of Spencer to the outer office. The Kanaka stood still at his post, and the young man sat for a time absorbed in thought. Presently he returned to his place in the other office and was surprised to find a slip of paper lying on his desk with the word ‘Vacant’ written in large letters. The deformed man who was at the head of the office looked at him askance but said nothing. The other clerks were extraordinarily busy and paid no attention to his movements as he got his hat and coat and prepared to withdraw. Their friend had suddenly become a leper whose hand they dared not touch.
A week passed. Spencer’s father labored with him and made daily reports to the President, but the young saint failed to appear either in the attitude of a suppliant, or otherwise. He stayed constantly at home and confined himself to his own room most of the time. A report became current that he was very sick with a fever, and one morning a note came to his mother from Dr. Robinson asking in the kindest and gentlest manner if he might not be allowed to call and see if he could do anything for ‘Charley,’ who had been his friend since childhood. The good woman religiously burnt the letter, and sent a brief reply to the effect that he had already poisoned her poor boy’s mind deeply enough, she did not wish him to poison his body as well.
The Elders who came to reason and pray with the young man did not realize that they had a case of typhoid, as well as the subtle symptoms of apostasy to deal with. They told him he had a devil that was causing all the difficulty, and that could only be cast out when he should resume his obedience to the priesthood.
When a Mormon doctor was finally called in, the disease had fastened itself firmly upon him. The house was unsanitary. Some of the younger children had died of scarlet fever in the fall, and Spencer’s system was terribly run down by the exposure and privation encountered during his mission, so that he was a ready victim. The physician said at once that his condition was alarming, and advised his mother to have him taken care of day and night.
The news of Spencer’s dismissal had spread rapidly throughout Zion. Hagar had heard of it in the Lion House. But she was much more troubled when a report reached her that he was attacked by that dreadful malady from which, she heard, few were ever saved there.
A sudden sense of peril seized her.
“Why,” she cried, “if he should die nobody will know me here. I shall be lost! No—he must not die—he must not die!”
She hurried to the apartment of Sister Clara, the kind and gentle wife of the prophet with whom she was domiciled, and asked her permission to go to Spencer’s house to inquire about her friend. The good lady warned her of the danger and said that she could not allow one of her daughters to go with her.
It was not far to the Spencer’s house, and though Hagar felt some uneasiness lest she might meet Langley on the way, she reached there in safety and was gratefully welcomed by the elder Mrs. Spencer.
“It may be the Lord’s will to take him away rather than to let him fall into apostasy. And, although it would break my heart to lose my poor boy, what can I say or do in opposition to God’s wisdom? Even for myself I would rather bury him than see him an apostate.”
Hagar was amazed at this cold relentless fanaticism, but passed it without comment and begged to see the sick man. Mrs. Spencer, as a matter of fact, preferred that she should not be admitted on account of the spiritual injury she might impart, but she sought to turn her from her purpose on the ground of the danger to herself.
“I am accustomed to nursing the sick, and have no fear for myself. Mr. Spencer saved my life once, and I must see him. Please take me to his room.”
Hagar knew the house from her former stay there and started up the stairs. Mrs. Spencer’s objections were nullified by the young woman’s ardor. There was but one short and narrow flight of steps. At the landing Hagar was met by the second Mrs. Spencer and was presently admitted to the sick room. The young missionary was so greatly changed that she could scarcely recognize him. He smiled and extended his hand and as Hagar took it she fell on her knees at the bedside, buried her face in her hands, and sobbed as if her heart was breaking.
They were alone. The womanly instinct even of those partners in grief, told them that here was a scene in which they could play no part.
“I dread her influence, Amanda,” said the first Mrs. Spencer, shaking her head sadly.
“Well, to me she seems like an angel; but, if she’s a devil, why does the Lord let her come?”
Hagar’s cry was one to heaven for the life of him she now realized for the first time, she loved. And the answer came back with healing to her eyes and to her heart. In a few moments she was all smiles and hope.
Spencer felt the glow of her spiritual presence which brought the place a new and effulgent light, filled the air with sweetness and peace, and transformed the shabby low-ceiled room into a corner of paradise. If life itself had been the price of this hour he would have paid it.
Days and weeks flew by. Hagar watched him through the crisis and by intelligent attention to ventilation and other sanitary requirements, did yeoman’s service in tiding him over the crucial hour. During his convalescence she prepared his food with her own hands, and while giving rigid attention to her duties at the President’s spent a portion of each day in his company.
In the knowledge of his love Hagar was brave and happy. She looked forward to the day when they should be able to go back to the States together and live and work for each other. That was all she asked, and Spencer promised her that it should certainly be if she would wait patiently awhile.
As soon as he was strong enough to get about he began looking for employment, and, after meeting with rebuffs from some of the leading Saints, determined to apply to the Waller Brothers, a mercantile firm whose members had left the Church after a bitter quarrel with the authorities over a demand for tithing. They were in need of a book-keeper and correspondent and offered him immediate employment on a good salary.
His real trouble now began. His poor old mother was in despair over the prospect of his working for and with those vile apostates who were under the ban of the priesthood. All saints were cautioned not to deal at their store and they were regarded as a blot upon the fair face of Zion. Now her dear boy was going to be their servant and receive his hire from them. The ardent and successful young missionary, whose praises had been sung from the Endowment House to the remotest “Stake” of Zion, and whose steps were leading fairly on the road to an apostleship, had cast aside the glory and exaltation of the priesthood to become the hireling of an apostate. Such were the bitter reflections of the poor old mother who loved him tenderly, but whose deepest affection was for her Church. As he turned to go, she sat down and wept, saying:
“Ah! Charles, my poor boy, may the Lord pity you!”
“And may he bless and protect you, dear mother. I look to him as you do, and I know he would not have me play the hypocrite.”
He had already told her that the Waller Brothers were going to pay him twice as much as he had received from the Church and she regarded this as another trick of Satan. But this was not all; he could no longer lodge under the roof-tree of the saintly home. He must seek a home elsewhere, since even a mother must not shelter her child after he become tainted with the spirit of apostasy. After a touching scene with the poor mother, whose fanaticism had to some degree unsettled her reason, he went forth in search of a temporary stopping place, and began his duties at the Waller Brothers store. His father denounced him as if he had been an outlaw and threatened to disown him. But the young man only bowed his head and walked away in silence.
The very next day while he was being instructed by his employer, he was astonished to see Hagar come into the store. She glanced about anxiously, and had a sad expression on her face. Charles excused himself and went to her.
“Why, Hagar darling, what has happened?”
“Is my face such a tell-tale, then? I am almost ashamed to let you know it—I have been told to leave President Young’s house.” Her lip quivered, but she kept back her tears and resolutely maintained her composure.
“You have? By whom?” asked Spencer leading her to the inner office.
“By Sister Clara, in obedience to orders from the President. She was so sorry about it, and cried as if she were driving out one of her own children. She said: ‘I have no choice but implicit obedience. I attempted to tell Brother Brigham that you were here among strangers, far from your home, and that you would be forever grateful for the kindness shown you. I told him that gratitude of a gentle soul is like a benediction from heaven. But you must go. He thinks you are the cause of Charles Spencer’s apostasy.’”
“Narrow bigot! But no matter, you can find a home at Doctor Robinson’s.”
“Yes, I thought of that. Mrs. Robinson has often told me that I would be welcome. But they said at President Young’s that you did wrong to go to the Doctor’s house, and that nobody who valued the good opinion of those in authority would dare associate with the apostate. I do not ask you to give up your religion on my account. I know that here or elsewhere you will never dishonor me or yourself, and I am willing to live wherever your wishes and interests direct. Do you not think it would be better if I could get board in a Mormon family?”
“You will be more comfortable and happy with Mrs. Robinson. She has never been a Mormon herself, and they cannot object to her giving you shelter. Your tastes and sympathies are congenial, and, since we must remain here for the present, I think that will be the best place for you. In spite of personal ties and a lingering affection for the cause in which I have labored honestly, I am resolved to quit Utah. My life would be a sorry failure here, for I am branded now with what is equivalent to the curse of Cain, in the eyes of all my friends.”
Hagar’s removal from the harem of the Mormon dictator to the cottage of Dr. Robinson was quietly effected. It would be difficult to say whither her late host had expected her to go, but he was very angry when word was brought that she had taken refuge with that “miserable apostate.” He heard that all the other apostates, and all the Gentiles and outsiders who were wintering within the walls of Zion, were chuckling triumphantly over the circumstance, and reports of the actual language used by some of these scoffing critics reached his ears, borne by sycophantic gossips who had no talent except their tattling malice. It fell out that the Prophet waxed exceeding wroth over this matter and employed some decidedly strong language in the way of prophesying the summary vengeance the Lord was about to wreak upon all his enemies. He and other magnates of the Church invoked an early and terrible visitation of the Divine rage, not only in private confab, but from the rostrum of the Tabernacle.
Charles Spencer was only too well aware that he was to blame for this agitated state of the Apostolic mind. The effect of his example was dreaded. He knew that disaffection was terribly contagious, and took care not to discuss his views with any of his former friends and colleagues, though they often came to him for that purpose. He did not suspect that any of these came as spies, but such was the case, and the trouble they took to draw him out might have warned him of the truth. His apostasy was now as much the theme among the saints as his missionary achievements had been a few short months before. Many spoke with pity or commiseration, but others discussed him with hatred and malice, the birth of envy or fanaticism. The Saint who had been most industrious in spying out his relations with Dr. Robinson was now installed in his former post at the tithing office. Many of the boys and girls who had been his school-mates, and even the people he had converted during his labors amongst the heathen of Ohio, passed him on the street without recognition.
But he had reached that point where he could feel sorrow for these offenders more keenly than the wrong to himself; and, after all, he sometimes thought, human nature was the same in Zion as elsewhere. He had seen the members of different sects treat each other exactly as the Mormons treated Gentiles, and heard them denounce infidels or free thinkers just as the Mormons did apostates.
The steady ray of hope and confidence which dwelt in his fine dark eyes was the outward expression of the fervent heart-prayer—the ever-burning altar-lamp of his soul. He was cheerful. The mutterings of fanatics and hypocrites disturbed him not. The United States troops on the hill above the town were a safe-guard against any high-handed act of tyranny that could injure him or the one he loved more dearly, and he believed that God would save him from the assassin, who had already done much bloody work in Zion. The snow was beginning to disappear from the valleys, and the time was fast approaching when he and his betrothed might exchange the narrowness of the Mormon Kingdom for a free place in the broad world.
“It was a sad day for the Mormon people when they allowed themselves to be fettered by polygamy,” he said one day when musing with tender regret on the prospect of severing himself from his people.
“The glory of having settled a wilderness and established therein a thrifty population is overshadowed by the approved crime they have planted with it. And this terrible mistake will work irreparable harm before it can be corrected. Used as the thumb-screw of the priesthood, it is the ball and chain of Satan by which progress is clogged, hope delayed, growth retarded, and disgrace made manifest. Always a failure and a curse, it cannot be perpetuated here. The worst evil will be that the generation of men and women who spring from polygamous stock, will supply a mass of blind advocates of the system, who will naturally think it must be good since it has produced them. Were it not for this source of life, of which it cannot now be deprived, it would soon die out and leave the people to accomplish their destiny with their natural pluck and enterprise untrammeled. But still, as God has suffered it, there must have been a cause, and it will take a far-seeing prophet to predict the outcome.”
After long days of uncongenial labor at the store, labor which he performed cheerfully only because he knew it was but a temporary expedient, his evenings were usually passed at Dr. Robinson’s, where they read, conversed, or listened to Hagar’s music, and singing by the doctor’s wife.
It was a bleak night in March. The afternoon had been so cold and stormy that nothing was doing at the store, and the Waller Brothers put up their shutters at sundown. Spencer went early to the Doctor’s house where he and Hagar talked over their plans until supper was announced. Then the regular programme followed. There was much sickness in the town and Dr. Robinson was called to see a child across the way. They had been reading Scott’s Quentin Durward, and the Doctor laid the book aside in the middle of a chapter to go at once, though the patient was the child of a poor Mormon, who could pay him nothing. When he returned and resumed the story, Hagar said:—
“If Sir Walter Scott had been acquainted with Brigham Young I should think he drew the character of Louis XI, from him.”
Spencer and the Doctor laughed.
“Are you not a little severe, Miss Taine?” said the Doctor.
“There certainly is a strong resemblance in some particulars, but Brigham is a more kindly man. He is crafty, rugged, and tyrannical, but I should be sorry to think him quite the counterpart of grim old Louis.”
The reading was continued until nearly midnight so interested had they become in the romance. Then Spencer withdrew. Hagar went with him to the door where they parted with kisses and blessings, never to meet again in peace and joy under that hospitable roof. It was a night for assassins to ply their trade in safety. The inky blackness blended earth and sky into a barrier as dense as that which stands beyond the portals of death. It was a few seconds before Spencer could find his way to the gate that shut in the small door-yard from the side-walk; but after his eyes became a little accustomed to the heavy gloom, the dim outlines of trees and fences enabled him to proceed, and he disappeared in the darkness.
At two o’clock there was a gentle knock at Dr. Robinson’s door. The Danish servant girl who had her room down stairs heard the noise and opened the window to ask who was there. A small boy with a lantern, who was shivering with the cold, stammered out:
“My sister is dying, and mother wants to know if the Doctor will please come to her.”
“Who are you? be you Johnny Reed?”
“Yes, and won’t you ask him to come quick?”
The girl assured him that the Doctor would soon be there, and the boy trotted away, the wind whistling through his scanty raiment.
Dr. Robinson had heard the boy’s voice and got up at once. He had already done his best to save the sick child, but it was one of those frail creatures not made to live, and he knew the previous day that the end was near. Still to comfort the poor widowed mother in her sorrow he made haste to get ready. His wife warned him to be careful of his own health, and insisted on placing a heavy muffler around his neck before she would let him go. As was his habit on leaving the house at night, he leant over and kissed her fondly, then went to the trundle-bed where his little boy and girl slept peacefully, to kiss their angel foreheads. He seemed to linger more than usual to-night, and his wife, noticing it, said softly:
“Don’t wake them, dear.”
Coming back to the bedside the Doctor replied:
“No, they are sleeping soundly. I was only making the covers snug around them, and thinking how heaven has blessed us.” There was a pathetic note in his voice that she never forgot.
The boy had gone home with his lantern, and as the Doctor opened the door the darkness seemed like an impassable barrier. He felt his way slowly to the gate, his foot-fall on the black frozen ground making a hollow ringing noise. Not a star was in sight, and the weird whistling of the wind made a sinister accompaniment to the night-gloom.
What means that sudden motion of feet just outside the gate! A crushing blow on a man’s head, a thrust with a sharp dagger, a faint moan, a gurgling sound, the stealthy fall of receding footsteps,—and then a deadly calm, broken only by the sighing wind...!
Spencer had reached his boarding house in safety, but instead of retiring, sat down moodily and was soon lost in reflection. For some unknown reason he felt ill at ease, and haunted by a vague sense of danger. It was a strange and uncomfortable state of mind such as he had never before experienced, and he tried in vain to convince himself that it did not forbode evil. Involuntarily he laid a loaded revolver under the pillow on his bed where he could reach it readily in case of need, and then continued to brood and worry over his unwonted apprehensions.
For Hagar he was ready to do and dare anything, but suppose the enemy should strike at her! The thought was like to drive him mad. Langley’s power and resources he knew to be irresistible but he believed that somehow Providence would shield him and his darling from the craft of the priesthood, and deliver them out of their present situation of danger and doubt.
Growing more calm, at length, he pictured to himself the varied phases of his acquaintance with Hagar. Now as the gentle girl he had saved near Cleveland; again, as the fainting victim of a villain at Castle Adamant; as the working girl plying her needle in a factory, or as the earnest woman he had just left (far more beautiful and attractive than ever, he thought), tried and proved by adversity—tested to the fullest extent in the white heat of affliction and bitter experience. And by some mysterious agency her heart had been given to him at a time when he was looking forward with grim satisfaction to the visit of death. It seemed that by a strange fatality their lives were knit together.
“I wonder what is to be the next act in this drama?” As he spoke he threw himself upon the bed, and burying his face in his hands, wept as only a young and ardent man can weep. In the midst of his sobbing he thought he heard a knock at his chamber door. He listened. The knock was repeated a little louder. The clock had just struck three. What could mean a visit at that hour? Seizing his revolver he went to the door.
“Who’s there?”
“Don’t be alarmed, it is I—Langley—I come as a friend.”
Spencer’s heart stood still. Here, he thought, was the explanation of his fearful apprehensions.
“Langley as a friend! I warn you bishop that I am prepared to sell my life dearly. Begone, or by the Lord I’ll kill you.”
“I am alone and unarmed, and I swear that I come as your friend, perhaps as the only one who can save you. I bring you terrible news and a warning. Kill me if you will.”
At this Spencer threw the door open and stepped back assuming an attitude of defense.
Langley strode in wearing a large cloak, a slouched hat, and top boots, and looking like a bandit chief. It was his usual habit, but Spencer saw at once that he lacked the overbearing and impertinent manner which he generally assumed before those he considered his inferiors.
“You may be sure that no common errand has brought me here at this hour—”
“I am—you have come to murder me—”
“No—you wrong me. As I said before, I come to save you.”
“From what—or whom?”
“From a terrible danger. Assassins are abroad, as you shall hear. You may think me their confederate unless you wait to hear me out.”
“And who has been assailed?”
Spencer’s mind was filled with dreadful images. His eyes glared, and Langley feared from the nervous manner with which he clutched his weapon that he might shoot him the instant he told his story.
“It is not Hagar. She is safe. But it is a damnable piece of business which I deplore as much as you do, and of which I am as innocent. I have never shared the priesthood’s ardor for ‘blood atonement,’ and have never countenanced it by word or deed.”
“It is Robinson then—they have murdered him——”
“Be calm one moment. If in your frenzy you should kill me, you would have on your hands the blood of an innocent man, and bring sudden destruction on yourself and others.”
Spencer, livid with a vague horror, sat down. A despairing sigh escaped him as he said,
“Go on.”
“Let me tell you first, Charles, that I have the strongest reason for wishing to serve you and the woman you love. The mystery of my conduct when you made known her name, will disappear when I tell you that she is my own daughter.”
“What’s that you say?” gasped Spencer, looking up suddenly into the Bishop’s face. He was so absorbed that he scarcely heard Langley’s words. “Your daughter!”
“Yes, my daughter. I will tell you more of this at another time. Now nerve yourself for to-night’s tragedy, and resolve at once to be ruled by me, or you will imperil your own life. Half an hour ago I was in my bed fast asleep. I was startled by the raising of a window, and heard a paper parcel fall on the floor. Procuring a light I dressed, armed myself, and then picked up the parcel which contained this letter:
“Bishop Langley, the prophets are fulfilled. The apostate bites the dust. It is beautiful to see how the Lord works out his decrees. Spencer, jealous of the seductive doctor’s attentions to the pretty widow, picks a quarrel with him, and sticks him under the fifth rib. But we won’t have these cussed apostates mussing up the streets of Zion with each other’s gore. The case against C. S. is perfectly clear, and as soon as the police carry Robinson’s carcass away in the morning, a committee of citizens will wait on C. S. and string him up to the nearest telegraph pole.”
“There is no need of reading more of this. You see the purpose of these cutthroats....”
“Oh! this is too horrible! I could not believe that such demons existed here.”
For a time he was entirely overcome. His nerves were still weak from the effects of recent sickness, and the appalling suddenness and atrocity of this crime in which he was marked for a victim, filled him with unutterable grief and dismay.
After a while Langley prevailed on him to come to his house, and as they went along the Bishop tried to draw his thoughts from the tragedy by telling him the story of Hagar.
Leaving Spencer to himself the Bishop roused one of his sons and sent him post haste to Camp Douglas with a message to General Connor. The General and Langley were good friends, and as the message reached the former at daylight, telling him of Robinson’s murder and the threats of mob violence to Spencer, he made a point of having a Company of Cavalry in the town by sun-rise. The day passed quietly though the mob gathered at the City Hall and Spencer’s name was coupled with the murder.
Hagar, terrified as she was, forgot herself in ministering to the stricken wife and mother. Spencer came early to help and cheer them as best he could.
The civil power was entirely in the hands of the Mormon authorities, and the assassins were never punished. When Langley mentioned the matter to Brigham Young some weeks later the prophet merely said:
“If it is the Lord’s will that his enemies are taken off, why let them rest in peace. When the wrath of the saints is kindled against the ungodly, there must be some reason for it, and my idea is to let it work itself out according to the Lord’s will. That’s always been my doctrine, and it’s worked first rate.”
Langley took both Hagar and Spencer under his protection and had it clearly understood that they were to be allowed to depart in peace from the Territory. As soon as the roads were open by the southern route, to California, Mrs. Robinson and her children went to her parents at Los Angeles, and a few days later the delayed mails arrived from the East.
The truth about Hagar’s identity was kept sacred by her father and Spencer. The ideal affection for her which had taken possession of Langley before he knew who she was, lingered yet in his heart, chastened, and eloquent with good promptings to his mind. In her he saw the innocence and trust as well as the beauty of the Hope Vincent whom he had so cruelly wronged, and he thought he detected also in her features a clear resemblance to himself. He was painfully conscious that the children of his other wives were not like her in any respect, and felt a singular pride and satisfaction in the reflection that despite all her misfortune and sorrow she was a true woman with courage to die if need be rather than suffer dishonor.
“Poor Hope is gone,” he would say to himself when musing as to what course he should pursue, “and I can best atone for my injustice to her by dealing kindly and fairly with her child. Spencer loves her, and nothing could tempt him to give her up. Brigham shall know nothing he does not know already, and she shall be spared any further knowledge about herself. They shall go and settle wherever they like, and I will help them.”
Hagar’s friendship with Amelia, the Bishop’s youngest wife, was renewed, and her last days among the saints were passed in comparative peace and contentment. The Bishop treated her with every mark of respect and consideration, and one day, in Spencer’s presence said to her:—
“Though you would not accept me as a lover I shall always love you as if you were my own child; and if ever I can serve you in any way, you have only to command me.”
The day after Ben Halliday’s stage arrived with the Eastern mail, which had been delayed some time by the impassable snows in the mountains, one of Spencer’s employers came into the store with letters and parcels.
“Here is something for you, Spencer,” said he, handing him a letter and a small express package.
Spencer was surprised on opening them to find that they were both from James Taine. As soon as he could get away he hurried to Hagar with the good news. First he exhibited a superb gold watch. In looking over his father’s papers, James said, he had found a draft of a letter intended for the young hero who saved him from the fire, and fulfilled his wish by forwarding the small memento of his admiration and esteem. The letter also contained an account of the writer being severely wounded at Murfreesboro on New Years day; of his promotion to the rank of colonel; his enforced retirement from active service; of Mrs. Taine’s death abroad, and his own return to Chestnut Grove where he expected to pass the rest of his life as an invalid. In closing Col. Taine said:
“In your reply, my dear Spencer, please tell me what was the last you saw and heard of my dear foster-sister? I have no doubt you felt a sympathetic interest in her sad misfortune, and perchance, in your rambling something may have transpired concerning her of a later date than anything we have. All trace of her from the time of Lamont’s arrest at Cincinnati is as completely lost as if the waves of the sea had closed over her. And yet I cling to the hope that she still lives, and that I shall sometime find her.”
“Dear good brother,” exclaimed Hagar. “And to think that he was wounded.” She was silent for a moment, and her half restrained emotion brought the tears to Spencer’s eyes. It was so sweet to know that loving hearts were beating yet with hope for her, but so bitter to realize how she had wronged the brother who loved her so tenderly.
“To relieve Colonel Taine’s suspense dear Hagar, and to cheer him in his sadness, I will telegraph at once that you are here and safe. Have you not some special message you would like to send him?”
“Yes, love; tell him that you are no longer a Mormon who cannot share his friendship; that we shall soon leave Utah, and—”
“I know the rest. Yes, I will go at once so that he may hear before this day passes, that you are safe.”
“Wait a moment—let me help you write the dispatch, and we can send it to the office by one of the boys.”
The answer which came from Colonel Taine next day was a great surprise to the lovers, and caused Spencer no little uneasiness. In his own dispatch he had modestly abstained from any reference to Hagar’s relations to himself, merely stating that she was in Salt Lake City and that he would write full particulars by the first stage. Colonel Taine telegraphed a credit for $500, and directed Spencer to help Hagar in her preparations for the long journey, and have her start for Ohio as soon as the weather was sufficiently settled. He wished her to return to the old home at Chestnut Grove.
“Colonel Taine loved you, Hagar, and I believe he will want to marry you,” said Spencer while they were talking over the dispatch.
Hagar was deeply touched by what she deemed the extraordinary magnanimity of her foster-brother, but said:
“No, James loves me only as a sister. His good heart is ready to forgive me for my shameful act; but it cannot be: I could not go back to Chestnut Grove, nor in any way accept his help.”
As soon as Bishop Langley was informed of the communications which had passed between his proteges and Colonel Taine he went to Brigham Young.
“Brother Brigham,” he said, “you did well to deal gently with Sister Miles, and there’s nothing left for us now but to send her back with good grace to her friends.”
“Why so? What has happened, Brother Edwin?” asked the prophet quietly.
Langley told him about the present to Spencer, the money and the dispatches.
“Very well; let them be off at once then. Their presence here is contaminating to the young. I have nothing special against the girl, but that miserable rebel, Spencer, is a stench in my nostrils.”
“I admit that it is too bad; but we cannot force them to start before the season is farther advanced and travel becomes more comfortable and safe.”
“What do you care for their comfort or safety? I have permitted your interference far enough in this case, but it can go no farther. They must leave here by the first stage or I will not be responsible for the consequences.”
“Oh, very well—by the first stage on which they can get a passage;—that will be towards the end of June, an excellent season for travel.”
The President did not like Bishop Langley’s demeanor but was well-nigh defenceless. Langley’s shrewd and self-willed personality was too potent a factor in the affairs of Zion to be ignored; even the President himself had no wish to antagonize him, and ended by telling him to do as he liked. Langley then said:
“Spencer wants to be set right about that bake-kettle incident. He says when he heard it mentioned in the tabernacle as a miracle, he blushed to the roots of his hair. The delusion was very useful for the purposes of the train, but I think myself that the true explanation might now be given with advantage.”
“What next will you wish to do for our fallow Judas, Edwin? You are suddenly become as mild as buttermilk, whereas you were wont to be more like a draught of wormwood. No. It makes no difference how that miracle was performed. It was seen and believed of the people, and has become so deeply rooted in their minds that it would require even a greater miracle to dispel it. When the people believe let them alone. They are as likely to be right in thinking it a thunderbolt from Heaven as you are in imagining that it was an explosive bake-kettle. Leave such quibbles to lawyers, and let the saints have faith.”