If her faith were justified, if her churchmen were trying only to intimidate her, the fact would soon be manifest, as would their failure, and then she would redouble her zeal toward them and toward what had been the best work of her life--work for the welfare and happiness of those among whom she lived, Mormon and Gentile alike.

If that secret, intangible power closed its coils round her again, if that great invisible hand moved here and there and everywhere, slowly paralyzing her with its mystery and its inconceivable sway over her affairs, then she would know beyond doubt that it was not chance, nor jealousy, nor intimidation, nor ministerial wrath at her revolt, but a cold and calculating policy thought out long before she was born, a dark, immutable will of whose empire she and all that was hers was but an atom.
Then might come her ruin.

Then might come her fall into black storm.
Yet she would rise again, and to the light.

God would be merciful to a driven woman who had lost her way.
A week passed.

Little Fay played and prattled and pulled at Lassiter's big black guns.