James. When he came to the three graves he stopped,
remembering that Obadiah had said they were his graves. A sort of grim
horror began to stir at his soul as he gazed on the grass-grown
mounds--proofs that the old councilor would inherit a place in the
Mormon Heaven having obeyed the injunctions of his prophet on earth.
Nathaniel now understood the meaning of his words of the night before.
This was the family burying ground of the old councilor.
He walked on, trying in vain to concentrate his mind solely upon the
business that was ahead of him. A few days before he would have counted
this walk to St. James one of the events of his life. Now it had lost
its fascination. Despite his efforts to destroy the vision of the
beautiful face that had looked at him through the king's window its
memory still haunted him. The eyes, soft with appeal; the red mouth,
quivering, and with lips parted as if about to speak to him; the bowed
head with its tumbled glory of hair--all had burned themselves upon his
soul in a picture too deep to be eradicated. If St. James was
interesting now it was because that face was a part of it, because the
secret of its life, of the misery that it had confessed to him, was
hidden somewhere down there among its scattered log homes.
Slowly he made his way down the slope in the direction of Strang's
castle, the tower of which, surmounted by its great beacon, glistened in
the morning sun. He would find Strang there. And there would be one
chance in a thousand of seeing the girl--if Obadiah had spoken the
truth.
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