"You know that I wouldn't like that, Sister Halsey; but when you come to
think of it you'll see that it wouldn't serve your turn neither. It
would only need for a few of us to say you was crazy and the whole town
'ud see the more reason for not letting you go. Moreover, it would be a
monstrous injustice to me. When have I failed to do anything that I ever
promised you? Did I ever promise to let you apostatise? I guess, Sister
Halsey, that you're excited, and if you just think over things for a day
or two you would see that we're not so bad as you think. But, anyway,
this ain't just the place for us to have a talk together."
When Smith moved on to lead her back to her own rooms, she followed
quietly until they stood together in her parlour, the scene of their
last quarrel.
"And now," said Susannah, "you understand very well that it is no sudden
intention of mine to go, that it is my irrevocable decision. I have this
morning had my very life threatened; and I see now that unless you
command that it should be respected I should very possibly be in danger
if I went away alone. You have offered again and again to drive me in
your carriage; I will accept the offer now. Get out your own horses, and
drive me yourself to Carthage."
She saw a look of faint pleasure steal over his face. He liked to stand
there in the quiet room listening while she spoke with some evidence of
trust. The pleasure faded into embarrassment, but she had seen it.
"You have a good and a bad nature struggling within you, Mr. Smith. By
all that we have suffered, you and I, since the day that by some
mysterious power you forced me to come to your baptism" (she stammered
in her eagerness), "by all that we have suffered, by that sympathy which
we have at times felt for one another, assert yourself now. Do this one
right thing for me, and in all the future I will try to remember only
the good in your life and not the bad."
But he stood so long still looking steadfastly before him that she began
to fear that, unnerved by his last night's fit of fury, he was ready to
pass into one of those visionary trances which had been common in his
younger days.
She touched the sleeve of his coat. "I do not know if Mr. Heber's threat
could be serious, but it frightened me, and I know that I shall be safe
on the road to Carthage if you take me. Go, get your horses and take me
away yourself."
He looked at her pitifully, slipping into the style of his religious
moods. "Thou sayest truly, sister, that there is none but I who could do
this thing, for since in mine anger last night, fearing that I had no
strength of my own to keep thee by me, I denounced thee to the council,
there is no safety for thy life beyond the boundary of Nauvoo." He
winced here, as if seeing what he suggested.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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