He looked at her fondly, and she could see striving and trembling in his eyes a great desire to crush her in his arms, yet he fought it down, and continued more calmly. “But indeed I must be favoured more than common, to deserve that so great a hurt be put upon me, and I shall not be found wanting. I shall never wed any woman but you, though, dear. If not you, never any other.” He stood up. “I must go in to them now. There must be work to do against the start to-morrow.” “Joel!” “May the Lord deafen my ears to you, darling!” and squaring his shoulders resolutely away from her, he left her on the seat and went in. The old man looked up from his Bible as his son entered. “It’s sore sad, laddie, we can’t have the temple for your sealing-vows.” “Prudence will not be sealed to me, father.” He spoke dazedly, as if another like the morning’s blow had been dealt him. “I—I am already sealed to the Spirit for time and eternity.” “Was it Prudence’s doings?” asked his mother, quickly. “Yes; she has left the church with her people.” The long-faced, narrow-browed old man raised one hand solemnly. “Then let her be banished from Israel and not numbered in the books of the offspring of Abraham! And let her be delivered over to the buffetings of Satan in the flesh!” Chapter V. Giles Rae Beautifies His Inheritance By eight o’clock the next morning, out under a cloudy sky, the Raes were ready and eager for their start to the new Jerusalem. Even the sick woman’s face wore a kind of soft and faded radiance in the excitement of going. On her mattress, she had been tenderly installed in one of the two covered wagons that carried their household goods. The wagon in which she lay was to be taken across the river by Seth Wright,—for the moment no Wild Ram of the Mountains, but a soft-cooing dove of peace. Permission had been granted him by Brockman to recross the river on some needful errands; and, having once proved the extreme sensitiveness, not to say irritability, of those in temporary command, he was now resolved to give as little éclat as possible to certain superior aspects of his own sanctity. He spoke low and deferentially, and his mien was that of a modest, retiring man who secretly thought ill of himself. He mounted the wagon in which the sick woman lay, sat well back under the bowed cover, clucked low to the horses, and drove off toward the ferry. If discreet behaviour on his part could ensure it there would be no conflict provoked with superior numbers; with numbers, moreover, composed of violent-tempered and unprincipled persecutors who were already acting with but the merest shadow of legal authority.