cleared away, but a violent headache made his words stumble.
"I was just wondering, Thalia--don't you think you might go
home now? You've had a whole year of it--and I really ought
to go home--the mill--"

"Why, Lewis Hall! What do you mean!" she said,
forgetting her part in her indignation. "I am a Shakeress.
You've no right to speak so to me."

He blinked at her through the blur of pain. "I wish you'd
stay with me, Athalia, I've got a--a sort of--headache.
Never mind about being a Shakeress just for to-night. It would
be such a comfort to have you."

But Athalia, with a horrified look, had left him.
She fled home in the darkness with burning cheeks; she debated
with herself whether she should tell Eldress how her husband--
no, Brother Lewis--had tried to "tempt" her back to him.
In her excitement at this lure of the devil she even wondered
whether Lewis had pretended that he was ill, to induce
her to stay with him? But even Athalia's imagination could
not compass such a thought of Lewis for more than a moment,
so she only told the Eldress that Brother Lewis had "tried
to persuade her to go back to the world with him."
The Lord had defended her, she said, excitedly, and she had
forbidden him to speak to her!

Eldress Hannah looked perplexed. "That's not like Lewis.
I wonder--" But she did not say what she wondered. Instead, she went
early in the morning down Lonely Lake Road to Lewis's house.