He picked the bundle up and untied it, touching the contents timidly. He took up the Bible last, and as he did so a memory flooded back upon him that sickened him and left him trembling. It was the book he had given her on her seventeenth birthday, the one she had told him she was keeping when they parted that morning at Nauvoo. He knew the truth before he opened it at the yellowed fly-leaf and read in faded ink, “From Joel to Prudence on this day when she is seventeen years old—June 2d, 1843.” In a daze of feeling he turned the pages, trying to clear his mind, glancing at the chapter headings as he turned,—“Abram is Justified by Faith,” “God Instructeth Isaac,” “Pharaoh’s Heart Is Hardened,” “The Laws of Murder,” “The Curses for Disobedience.” He turned rapidly and at last began to run the leaves from between his thumb and finger, and then, well over in the book something dark caught his eye. He turned the leaves back again to see what it was; but not until the book was opened flat before him and he held the page close to the light did he see what it was his eye had caught. A wash of blood was across the page. He stared blankly at the reddish, dark stain, as if its spell had been hypnotic. Little by little he began to feel the horror of it, remembering how he picked the book up from where it had fallen before her. Slowly, but with relentless certainty, his mind cleared to what he saw. Now for the first time he began to notice the words that showed dimly through the stain, began to read them, to puzzle them out, as if they were new to him:— “But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, “Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. “And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also. “Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” Again and again he read them. They were illumined with a strangely terrible meaning by the blood of her he had loved and sworn to keep himself clean for.