O, I promise you shall meet her, and make love to her, Nat! Ho, if
Strang knew, if Strang _only_ knew!"
There was something so fiendishly gloating in the councilor's attitude,
in his face, in the hot glow of his eyes, that for a moment Nathaniel's
involuntary liking for the little old man before him turned to
abhorrence. The passion, the triumph of the man, convinced him where
words had failed. The girl was Strang's wife. His last doubt was
dispelled. And because she was Strang's wife Obadiah hated the Mormon
prophet. The councilor had spoken with fateful assurance--that he should
meet her, that he should make love to her. It was an assurance that made
him shudder. As he followed in silence up out of the gloom of the town
he strove, but in vain, to find whether sin had lurked in the sweet face
that had appealed to him in its misery--whether there had been a flash
of something besides terror, besides prayerful entreaty, in the lovely
eyes that had met his own. Obadiah spoke no word to break in on his
thoughts. Now and then the old man's insane chucklings floated softly to
Nathaniel's ears, and when at last they came to the cabin in the forest
he broke into a low laugh that echoed weirdly in the great black room
which they entered. He lighted another candle and approached a ladder
which led through a trap in the ceiling. Without a word he mounted this
ladder, and Nathaniel followed him, finding himself a moment later in a
small low room furnished with a bed.
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