University of Virginia Library

14. XIV.
MIRIAM'S KINGDOM.

MIRIAM had slipped from the room, but as
Arundel stepped into the hall he heard
her light footfall, and in a moment more was
beside her again.

“I brought you this bouquet, Miss Miriam,”
he said, notwithstanding he could see the overflowing
greenhouse as he stood, “and was so
ungallant as to forget about it. It is faded
now, yet perhaps you will take it;” and he
offered it with a glance and gesture that broadly
told of a heart offered anew with it.

Miriam hesitated a moment, then receiving
them, said, “Thank you for your flowers.”

“And the heart goes for nothing?” he exclaimed.

“No, no, Marc, do not speak so; you know
we are to be friends.”

“Friends! I don't want your friendship, — I
ask for your love!”

“Love would not be worth taking, without
the other.”

“Miriam, how long must I serve? Could
you ask for more constancy? Love will come,
once sealed by marriage.”

“Marriage is too divine a sacramental bread
to be broken between us,” she said.

“Marriage is n't a sacrament in our church,”
he retorted.

“Not a sacrament, but too frequently on one
side a sacrifice.”

“Then you won't be my wife? I need n't
ask, I see; you 've your old answers pat. But
they 're all false; only this one true — you love
him — him! But he never shall have you,”
he added in a lower yet fiercer tone. “Your
words can be his ruin; it hangs on you. See!
I never will ask again. Refuse me now, and it
is forever!”

A quick, angry answer leaped to Miriam's lip
and flashed in her eye; but something taught her
that if the man loved he suffered, and repressing
it, she only said pleadingly, —

“Don't make me angry, Marc.”

He turned upon his heel as if to go, but retracing
his steps, came and bent toward her face.
Miriam sprang back indignantly, then heard his
short laugh, as he exclaimed, —

“Ha! ha! we should do capitally on the boards.
No two better actors in the kingdom. If St.
Denys should die and leave you unprovided for,
I 'd advise you to try it!” and before the wrath
that overwhelmed her could find expression, he
was gone. His last coarse words, she saw, had
betrayed him. It was St. Denys's money, not his
ward, he wooed. He should have it all.

Yet a year afterward, — when she heard that
Arundel, still doubtless on his way weaving snares
for others, was himself caught in one that forced
him to seek safety in emigration, where, with an
ocean between them, she was never again to be
troubled by his sight or influence, — Miriam did
not regret that words had failed her on this occasion.

Meanwhile, within the drawing-room, St. Denys,
as Arundel went out, looked up and surveyed his
companion from head to foot.

“For Heaven's sake, Rohan,” he said, “why

are you not like ordinary men, and twenty years
younger?”

“Things without remedy should be without
regard,” sadly quoted the other.

“I wonder if I am doomed to mistrust that man
continually? He seemed to you very affable this
afternoon?”

“Yes, very.”

“And I have always observed him so, when
most pleased at any piece of mischief he has in
hand. Before this spider spins his toils round her,
my friend,” continued St. Denys, somewhat cautiously,
“why not win and marry my little girl?”
This proposal he made with the air of one ashamed
of himself, as an Englishman would barter a Circassian.

“Impossible!” ejaculated Sir Rohan, looking at
him with wonder, and now that his own wish
was urged by another, summoning every reason
to oppose it. “I am wedded to an inexorable
past.”

St. Denys seemed confounded an instant. “You
are speaking figuratively?” said he then.

“I mean that I will not poison your `little
girl's' existence by the shadow of my own.”

“I hardly comprehend you. But if Death has
ever brought you a sorrow such as it brought me,
I cannot imagine where a dearer consolation is to
be found than mine, than Miriam. You love her
now. And as for the poison, — pshaw! She was
never so gay as in your house.”

“Do you know that I think I must have been
mad awhile ago, if not a great portion of my
life?”

“More mad now, if you persist.”

“I beg you not to mention the thing to her. If
unconscious, let her remain without making me
abhorrent by such an idea.”

“Don't slander my friend, if you please. And
remember that, since you cannot be improved,
nothing would give me more happiness. Try.”

“I am ill and old.”

“How old are you, Rohan?”

“Forty.”

“A vast age! and I a lustre more. What gray-beards!”

“I wonder why,” said Sir Rohan after a pause,
“you cherish this romantic friendship for me. I
do nothing to deserve it, all to forfeit it; and after
sleeping twenty years, it is all at once bright as
ever.”

“It has not slept twenty years. What use is it
to recall our boyhood, I should like to know?
We were friends then. I could not have been
living but for you, Rohan; and after that, had we
any games, studies, or thoughts but in common,
till you left me? Who had ever more morbid
weaknesses corrected by another than I by you?
I owe infinite sums to your courage, your friendship.
You don't forget it, though you have buried
yourself alive. How can I?”

“And can you look at me with clear eyes, and
fail to see that I should make her miserable?”

“Certainly I fail to see it.”

“Then why do you wish me changed?”

“Checkmated! Why, sir, that you may fill a
young lady's ideal.”

“And you think that possible?”

“Perhaps I ought to ask if she fills yours.”

“You should remember that I have no ideal.”

“My child, indeed, has had no mother,” said
St. Denys, apologetically, — “has wanted for all
feminine instruction, and lacks a little that unbroken
dignity of the thorough lady; but —”

“She is the freer from artificiality therefore;
the rarer, richer,” interrupted Sir Rohan.

“You think it? Then why not follow my advice,
— win her?”

“By God's help, I will!” Sir Rohan was about
to say. But what right had he who had broken
law to require help? It was an obstacle not to be
destroyed, so he turned his back upon it. “As I
live, I will,” he said.

St. Denys took his hat and stepped upon the
terrace, in search of Redruth, the glamour of
friendship still sealing his eyes; and Sir Rohan,
with beating heart, waited an instant before opening
the door and unexpectedly confronting Miriam.

She stood where Arundel had left her at the
foot of the staircase, one hand upon the balustrade,
the other hanging by her side, with drooping
head and sidelong glance, absorbed in reverie.
At his advance, she started, and caught her foot in
the heavy mat. He bent to disentangle it, and as
he rose with the flush of stooping on his face, said
simply, “St. Denys says we must leave soon.
When I return, shall it be alone? Will you come
with me, Miriam?”

She hardly knew what he said; her mind was
not yet clear from the storm Arundel had aroused.

Ire, to be thus addressed again and so soon, renewed
the confusion, and with a curling lip she
sprung past him up the stairs and into her own
apartment.

Yet once there, her face sunk into her hands.
What had she said? What had she done? Had
he asked her to return with him? How? As his
wife? Yes, yes. But was it true, what that
wretch had said? Did she love him — Did she
not love him? “O my heart!” she cried, as it
rushed over her, “is it too late?” And impetuously
as she had entered the room, she left it.

But at the first step a sentiment, totally new,
routed her; — a timidity, a shame, a doubt; — and
more and more slowly she descended, till standing
in the selfsame attitude at the foot again.

Sir Rohan remained, according to his custom
when suddenly excited, as the blow struck him,
upright, motionless, and frozen one might say, but
for a scarlet dye upon his cheek. The hush about
him was like that preceding some explosion, when
every breath seems drawn into stillness. He appeared
not to notice her as she stood there, till at
last, as unreasonably, he turned slowly toward the
beautiful face bathed in tears, the great eyes

raised a moment to his, full of love. He stooped
forward, his breath swept her cheek, his lips
touched hers, grew to them, in a passionate daring.
Then, as wildly, he tore them off, and commenced
walking the hall.

How long she waited, paled and flushed alternately
in uncertainty, hope, and fear, Miriam did
not know. She abode like a culprit, while her
sentencer measured the tiles with his stride. The
great tongue of the clock struck six, and only with
its resonant clangor did his step cease.

“Miriam, Miriam,” he murmured like one in a
dream, “do you love me?”

“You know I do, Sir Rohan,” she answered
pathetically.

She felt him draw near, though she dared not
see, — felt his ardent smile, his outstretched arms,
the embrace with which they held her; and
silently, Miriam had found her costly kingdom.

And for Sir Rohan, — all things were swallowed
in the fruition of the moment. Life was sweet, he
said; rest and joy. Life was Miriam.