So, in another half an hour Miss Travenion, turning from the main road and driving up a little spur of the mountain, past one or two dug-outs and miner's cabins, gets out of the wagon at the door of a house built of rough lumber, and says nervously to a man in high, muddy boots and blue shirt, greasy with candle drippings: "Is Bishop Tranyon in?" "Yes, he is in the back room," and, pointing to the door, the miner goes off to his work. She enters, and seated upon a wooden chair, looking over some accounts at a deal table, is the man they call Bishop Tranyon, and she says to him:--"FATHER!" At her word, Ralph Travenion, once New York exquisite, now Mormon bishop, staggers up, trembles, and, gazing on her, cries: "Erma! my God! YOU here?" Then, forcing back some awful emotion, his voice grows tender as he says: "Why, this is a surprise, darling! You have travelled all the way from New York to see your father. God bless you, child of my heart!" and there are tears in his deep eyes, and he would approach her and put his arms about her, giving her a father's kiss. But she starts from him, shudders, and gasps: "Don't dare to kiss me!" "Why not?" "_Because I know what you are._" "My God! You know--" and the strong man turns from her, and hides his face in his quivering hands. Then she goes on, faltering a little over the words, but still goes on: "Why have you disgraced our name? Why have you become a Mormon--a POLYGAMIST?" Here he astonishes her by whispering, with white lips, these curious words: "I did it that I might settle upon you a million! For your sake I became Mormon--for your sake I became polygamist. I DID IT FOR BUSINESS PURPOSES!" CHAPTER XII. A DAUGHTER OF THE CHURCH. For a moment, Erma believes this extraordinary statement, and falters, seeming almost to invite his caresses, at least not to repulse them. Seeing this, Ralph Travenion mutters, "Thank God, you believe me!" and flies to take her in his arms; but suddenly her dead mother's face seems to the girl to rise between her father and herself. She shudders, turns away from him, and says coldly: "You ask me to believe this monstrous thing,--that for my sake you became a Mormon?" "Yes, as God is above me!--to make you rich,--to place you above the care of poverty,--to surround you with luxury,--the thing that has been my one thought in life." "Was that your thought?" cries the girl suddenly, with a face that to him is beautiful as an angel's, but just as that of the angel's God--"was that your thought when you entered into polygamous marriage with those women down there? Oh, don't attempt to deny it!" for he is about to open his lips. "I saw two of them. I was at the Sunday-school meeting of the Twenty-fifth Ward, and beheld your hostages to your faith--five little ones, I believe. One of them, a girl, Mr. Oliver Livingston was kind enough to say, looked like me."