absence I could not help thinking with genuine satisfaction of the
happiness Sarah was experiencing in the gratification of her longing
to return home again. Surely, I thought, she must be happy now. No
more homesickness, and a full and complete reconciliation with her
family; all the anger, abuse, and blows forgotten or forgiven; she
restored to her place in the family; and even her objectionable
husband received with open arms.

But what an enormous difference there is between fancy and fact.
During this brief absence of mine, had come home the brother who had
always seemed to concentrate the hatred of the whole family towards
me for the wrong they assumed I had done to the youngest daughter
who loved me. On my return I found the peaceful home I left in the
morning a perfect pandemonium. Sarah was fairly frantic. The whole
family were abusing her. The returned brother especially, was
calling her all the vile names he could lay his tongue to. I learned
afterwards that he had been doing it ever since he came into the
house that day and found her at home and heard that I was with her.
They had picked, wrenched rather, out of her the secret I had
confided to her that I had another wife from whom I was "separated,"
but not divorced. My sudden presence on this scene was not exactly
oil on troubled waters; it was gunpowder to fire. As soon as Sarah
saw me at the door she cried out:

"O! husband, let us go away from here."

Her mother turned and shouted at me that I had better fly at once or
they would kill me. Meanwhile, that mob, which the Scheimer boys
seemed always to have at hand, was gathering in the dooryard. I
managed to get near enough to Sarah to tell her that I would send a