“Besotted fool!” burst from Madame’s colourless lips, “do you hold this language to me? You scorn me and my love! Then on your own head be the consequences. Ah, now nothing shall stop me. An angel from heaven, no, nor God Himself shall stand between me and my revenge. Ezra Weston, farewell!” She left the room, shutting the door upon him and his misery. Unhappy man! His world seemed crumbling beneath his feet. He had lost his wife, and now his friend, the one whom he most revered, had cast him out from her regard. What could he do? His heart answered, nothing but dumbly suffer in the deserted home where he was left alone. What a black and barren waste was his life! And how fair and smiling it had looked a few short weeks ago! It was as if a devastating fire had passed over him leaving his heart like the desolated prairie, black and hopeless. Madame went away alone for one day, no one knew whither, and came back with a look on her face that struck terror into all who saw her. Her smooth white face looked cruel and pitiless, and the gleam from her eyes reminded one of cold steel. Her soft hands sometimes closed on their own pink palms with a spasmodic clutch, as if she had the throat of an enemy between their cruel grasp and was crushing the life out of him. A cold dreadful face, a cruel sickening look that made Napoleon Pompey and Uncle David shiver within their souls, and caused the brethren to draw away affrighted from their once beloved leader. Perfection City was the abode of wretchedness. The Academy never opened its doors to the assembled Pioneers, who were afraid to come near Madame’s house. Each lived by himself, looking askance at his neighbour, for over all had fallen a spirit of suspicion. Only Brother Huntley, the deaf brother, and his mute wife were happy, working on contentedly, shielded by their misfortune from the full knowledge of the disasters that had come upon the Community. The days dragged miserably by, seemingly endowed with a miraculous length of hours, for the sufferings of a life-time were compressed into that hideous fortnight. The glaring sun blazing down upon the blackened prairie seemed to Ezra to have become no unfitting symbol of hell. The light was hateful, darkness, eternal darkness would have been a relief to his brain. Could it be possible that he was going to live his life out in a realized purgatory? He was young, only twenty-five, and if his life was to stretch even to the average span of human existence, what an eternity of suffering lay before him! A brokenhearted man amid the ruins of his broken life.