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Show Page 91 time of this vote, taken May 11, 1842, Orson was"out of harmony" with 28 his quorum, a body which valued unanimity above all else. After his flight from Nauvoo, Bennett's rascally behavior began to come out. Joseph Smith had been made aware of Bennett's abandoned family and of his expulsion from the Masonic Order and had reason to believe that he, Bennett, harbored treachery against the Prophet. If Orson, however, had misgivings about Bennett, they were outweighed by his wife's report concerning the doings of Joseph Smith. Whether or not it occurred to him at this point to question his wife's account it is impossible to say. He found it increasingly difficult to associate with any of his brethren and refused to join the Masonic lodge when the invitation was extended to him. Early in the summer, Bennett's fantastic distortions about life in Nauvoo began circulating throughout the West - he claimed that there existed at Nauvoo a harem divided into three degrees, the highest of which, the "Sisters of the Black Veil," were devoted to the exclusive and degraded pleasure of Nauvoo's leading citizen. Still Orson Pratt did not know whom to believe, inasmuch as his wife continued to insist that Smith, not Bennett, was the one who had foully abused her. On July 13 Orson wrote notice of his withdrawal as a candidate for the State Legislature, giving as his reason the presence of so many so much better qualified than himself. His "cheerful" refusal of this honor ("if it may thus be called" he adds ironically) may have signaled feelings deeply in disarray. Apparently Orson was unable to front the Prophet directly with his accusations; he felt either incapable of controlling his emotions or ashamed of the confusion he suffered, but sometime in the early morning of July 15, 1842, he wandered aimlessly away from the town, far down the rlvsrt bank - accoraing^Nto some authorities, to commit suicide. Joseph |