With unsatisfied affections and thoughts wholly perplexed, Susannah beheld the days of the new year lengthening. Then she fell into the weakness, to which humanity is prone, of hoping eagerly for some external circumstance that should lighten the inner darkness. A bit of stray news one day came to her with the shock of an apparent fulfilment of her vague expectation. Finney was passing through that part of the country preaching. Of all human beings she had ever met, this remarkable evangelist most impressed her as a man who had intimate dealing, awful, yet friendly, with an unseen power. She had no sooner heard that he was within reach than her mind leaped to the determination to hear him preach and speak with him again. She would lay her difficulties before him; she would hear from him more intelligence concerning the home which she had left than a thousand letters could convey. It was March now. The winter's snow was gone. Finney, as it chanced, was to come as near to Kirtland as the village of Hiram. Susannah spoke to her husband. "Did you hear that Mr. Finney was going to preach at Hiram?" She stood turning from the white spread table in the centre of the room. The morning light was shining on the satin surface of the planed maple wood with which walls and ceiling were lined. Halsey was putting on his boots to go out to his day's round of business and pastoral work. He knew just as well as if she had explained it to him that a great deal lay behind what she said. He fell to wondering at once what she could want. Was it to send a message to the old home by the man whose very name must recall all its memories? "I want to go and hear him preach," Susannah went on. Halsey was disturbed. "Thou canst not really have such a desire," he said severely. "Why not? A great deal that he preaches is just the same as what you preach, Angel." He saw that she was in a turbulent mood, and that grieved him; but as for her request, he could not believe it to be serious. "Thou art speaking idle words," he said with a sigh, and he rose to go out. "You have not answered me. Why shouldn't I hear him when you agree that much that he says is true?" "He is in the camp of those whom Satan has stirred up to do us injury. That which thou callest truth in his mouth is but the form of godliness, for it is clear that if God be with those who fight against us he cannot be with us." Something in the expression of her face brought him now a more distinct feeling of alarm. His nature was singularly direct. He had scarcely finished his meditative argument ere he sought to clinch its purport, and, stepping near, he laid his hand gently upon her shoulder. "Dost thou doubt, Susannah, that God is with us?"