"I want to tell you--" he whispered, and Nathaniel bent low. "I have given him the package. It is evidence I have gathered--all these years--to destroy the Mormon kingdom." He tried to turn his head. "Marion--" he whispered wistfully. "She will come," said Nathaniel. "I will call her." "No--not yet." Obadiah's fingers tightened about Captain Plum's. "I want to tell--you." For a few moments he seemed struggling to command all his strength. "A good many years ago," he said, as if speaking to himself, "I loved a girl--like Marion, and she loved me--as Marion loves you. Her people were Mormons, and they went to Kirtland--and I followed them. We planned to escape and go east, for my Jean was good and beautiful, and hated the Mormons as I hated them. But they caught us and--thought--they--killed--" The old man's lips twitched and a convulsive shudder shook his body. "When everything came back to me I was older--much older," he went on. "My hair was white. I was like an old man. My people had found me and they told me that I had been mad for three years, Nat--mad--mad--mad! and that a great surgeon had operated on my head, where they struck me--and brought me back to reason. Nat--Nat--" He strained to raise himself, gasping excitedly. "God, I was like you then, Nat! I went back to fight for my Jean. She was gone. Nobody knew me, for I was an old man. I hunted from settlement to settlement. In my madness I became a Mormon, for vengeance--in hope of finding her. I was rich, and I became powerful. I was made an elder because of my gold. Then I found--" A moan trembled on the old man's lips. "--they had forced her to marry--the son of a Mormon--" He stopped, and for a moment his eyes seemed filling with the glazed shadows of death. He roused himself almost fiercely. "But he loved my Jean, Nat--he loved her as I loved her--and he was a good man!", he whispered shrilly. "Quick--quick--I must tell you--they had tried to escape from Missouri and the Danites killed him,--and Joseph Smith wanted Jean and at the last moment she killed herself to save her honor as Marion was going to do, and she left two children--" He coughed and blood flecked his lips. "She left--Marion and Neil!" He sank back, ashen white and still, and with a cry Nathaniel turned to the lieutenant. The officer ran forward with a flask in his hand. "Give him this!" The touch of liquor to Obadiah's lips revived him. He whispered weakly.