whole arguments for and against a more flexible mar-
riage law in the pages of The Advance Guard; but
it was a very different matter to be confronted with
the question in her own life.
" But do you mean that you — that you want to be
divorced from her?" she hesitated.
Herman tossed back the hair that fell across his
eyes with a gesture of wild impatience.
" Here, indeed, is the very mischief," he said.
" Hasn't she vowed to me she will never divorce me ;
never make it possible for me to take another wife?
She is jealous as a tiger."
" How ugly ! " Miriam cried, shrinking back into
the corner of the sofa. Herman leaned forward and
lifted the flaccid little hand that lay on the cushion be-
side him.
" Miriam," he said, " do not feel this way. I wish
to be done with this ugly world where I have lived
until now ; where men and women fight for each other,
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and hate one another. I wish to be done with it all,
and to have life serene and beautiful with you — if you
will come to me."
" But if I could not be your wife," she said slowly,
" I would not be considered respectable."
Herman laughed aloud at these words and the
grave way in which they were spoken.
" Dear child," he said, " it is the woman herself
who is respectable or not. I have seen so many a mar-
ried woman to whom I would grudge this good word
* respectable.' I know, too, women whose connections
are not regular but whose hearts are still like snow."
"You have seen much more of the world than I
have," Miriam admitted. Her knowledge of those
persons who had transgressed the social laws in the
community of Hindcup had been limited to two in-
stances: the kitchenmaid at the Manor, whose seduc-
tion had so annoyed Aunt Pillar, and another young
woman whose name had been solemnly effaced from
the communicants' roll of the chapel, for the same
offense.
" Would I," she asked herself, " if I went to live
with Herman, would I be like them? "
The thought made her hot and cold all over.
" I can't listen to what you are sa)ring," she said
hurriedly. " We would not be happy ; people who do
these things are miserable "
" But, Miriam, listen to me ; what you say is perhaps
true of those liaisons — ^these miserable sordid affairs.
But you I want so differently. I want you for always,
till death parts us; till the soul of me has perished I
shall want you 1 "
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He caught Miriam in his arms and covered her with
kisses. The urgency of his passion swept away her
scruples as a rising flood carries before it all the straws
and sticks that have gathered in the side eddies of a
stream. She was loved fondly and dearly, loved and
understood at last, after the long repression and
blighting influences of her girlhood. The man who
loved her thus was no enigma to her, as the young men
of Hindcup had been; she had to make no effort
to understand the workings of his mind, or to explain
to him what she felt about an)rthing. Between them
there was a perfection of sympathy that scarcely
needed words. Neither of them was ordinary ; and in
this their extraordinary attraction for each other con-
sisted. Just in proportion as Miriam had found it
impossible to get on with the average youth of Hind-
cup, she now found it easy to get on with Herman.
Just as she had nothing to say to them, she had every-
thing to say to him.
" Say that you will come to me," Herman urged ;
for while she realized all this Miriam had been
silent.
" I can't," she said at last. " Not yet ; my mind is
not enough made up yet."
" You do not care enough," said he.
" I must have time to think. You cannot expect me
to make a decision like this all at once."
Did she care enough? That was the question in
her mind ; care enough to throw away reputation and
the esteem, such as it was, of her own people, and be-
come an outcast from them forever. " I must wait
and find out," she thought.
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" And how long will this decision take you ? " Her-
man asked.
" I do not know ; I cannot say. You must know
how difficult it is for me — " Her eyes were full of tears
as she looked at him, and she went on : " It is so diffi-
cult to distinguish. I am more than happy when I am
with you. I love to listen to every word you say;
I wish to tell you everything in my heart; but is
this love? I do not know. I must wait and be
sure."
" And if you were sure? "
There was a long silence before she answered.
" If I were quite sure, if I knew that I had found
this wonderful thing, I do not think that I would hesi-
tate." Herman flung himself back against the wool-
work cushion with something between a laugh and a
sigh.
" See you are quick about it, little one/' he said.
" It is of my nature to be greatly impatient. I shall
write to you each week to know how the decision
prospers."
" You must not be unreasonable," said Miriam
gently. " For you know if it is your nature to be
'greatly impatient,* it is mine to think a long time
about ever)rthing. 1 have to see both sides of every
question. Just now, I am inclined only to see one side
of this — how happy I might be with you ; but I know
there is another, and I must look at it also."
"That you might be miserable with me? You
speak, no doubt, of this hot temper of mine, which is
notorious?"
" No, I never heard about it. I only guessed that it
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was there when I spoke to you by the river," she said,
with a smile.
" I was indeed cross. I have frightened you."
" I never thought of it again. It has nothing to do
with my hesitation. I scarcely think I should care,
however cross you were to me," she said.
"What then? You have heard that I am extrava-
gant, that I do not hoard my money? " She shook her
head and smiled again.
" I have never heard any stories about you ; all my
scruples come from my own mind. You must give
me time."
" You will at least write to me. I do not stay after
this week in London."
" No," she answered slowly. " I do not think that
I will write to you. I wish to live my life entirely with-
out you, as it was only a few short weeks ago. How
short our knowledge of each other is, after all, and
it seems so long ! "
Herman got up and walked to and fro across the
little room.
" Now you speak like a fool," he said. " So well
you might turn back the hands of that clock to twelve
and say you wished to think it noon again ! You can-
not get me out of your life now. I am in it forever."
Miriam was silent ; she knew that what he said was
true.
" Go, please, I want to be alone," she said. But
when he had gone the room felt cold and dark. She
shivered and glanced at the empty grate, not realizing
for a moment what it was that she missed.
A terrible temptation assailed her: here she was,
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at war with her own people, misjudged and misunder-
stood by them, and now Herman offered her love,
understanding, companionship — ^those wonderful gifts.
But then — " Oh, how bitter it is ! " she cried.
" Where I could have g^ven love I did not dare to en-
tertain the least thought of it — ^and now when love is
offered to me, must I reject it?" Miriam fully realized
at that moment the dilemma she had arrived at, and
confessed it openly to her own heart at last. She
could never feel to Herman as she felt to Alan Gore —
but yet how he understood her, how he charmed her !
Surely for companionship such as his she would be
wise to forfeit everything, even her good name itself.
And then he loved her — ^and no one had ever loved
her before. In time perhaps she would forget the old,
foolish wound and be happy and contented with the
love of this wonderful man who was so unlike every-
one else. . . . Thus the Tempter whispered in her ear.
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CHAPTER XXXIX
Cochrane walked back from Victoria very slowly.
She had a good deal to think about, for Aunt Pillar
had found it necessary to pour out all Miriam's story
to her old acquaintance on the way to the 'bus. Coch-
rane had received the tale, as she received most things,
in silence. She scarcely knew what to think of it.
" But one thing's certain," she said to herself, " and
that is, the girl needs a friend."
She had detected the hostile ring in Aunt Pillar's
voice, and the fact that she seemed anxious to put the
worst instead of the best construction upon the story.
" The Pillars always had a coarse streak somewhere
in them," she thought. " There's a way and a way of
telling a thing. I remember in the days when Jen-
kins was courting me, Mrs. Pillar had a way of no-
ticing everything that went against me. Well, well,
Miriam is a queer girl to come from that stock."
Cochrane had resolved to adhere to her former reso-
lution and ask no confidence from Miriam. But when
she reached home the little maidservant Gavina met
her at the door in a state of huge excitement.
" May I speak a minnit, ma'am ? There was a gen-
tleman with orful eyes up in the parlor with Miss
Sadler. Came in a carriage and kep' it at the door,
a real carriage, ma'am."
"Well, Gavina, what of it?" said Cochrane in a
repressive voice. "Is the gentleman still upstairs?"
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" No, ma'am ; gone, ma'am. I watched at the 'ead
of the backstairs all the time to make sure."
" I well believe it, Gavina ; get away downstairs now
to your work," said Cochrane severely. She would
not encourage gossip about her boarder. But this an-
nouncement of Gavina's had brought her to a decision.
She must speak about this visitor. Going slowly up-
stairs, Cochrane entered the parlor and shut the door.
Miriam was sitting by the window; she had no pre-
tense of employment. Cochrane came and stood be-
hind her chair, and laid a kind though heavy hand
on her shoulder.
" My dear," she said, " your Aunt Pillar has been
telling me you're in some trouble with them at home,
about some man; and now Gavina tells me he has
been here while I was out." She came and sat down
beside her, then, and waited that she should reply;
but, instead of speaking, Miriam suddenly laid her
head down on Cochrane's hard, uninviting-looking
shoulder, and wept bitterly.
"Dear, dear!" said Cochrane, commenting, mean-
while, on the smell of tobacco that clung to Miriam's
face, " and very good tobacco ; not servants' hall stuff,
in the least," she said to herself.
" There, now, tell me about it, my dear," she said,
when her sobs had quieted a little. " I'm afraid you
and your aunt had a few words ; she seemed put about
and warm a little."
It did not take long, however, for Cochrane to dis-
cover that these tears were not flowing for Aunt Pil-
lar's displeasure.
" Now, Miriam," she said, " it's happily a case where
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there's no two ways. What you have to do is never
to see him again, or hear from him, or of him, or look
his way. If he writes to you, put the letter in the fire ;
and if he comes to see you, leave word you won't see
him. As sure as death, my dear, if you do anything
else, you'll get into trouble."
« But "
" There now, never say the word. There's no two
ways about it."
" I shall never see another man like him," said
Miriam.
" I daresay not."
" Do you not think that makes a difference? He is
not like other men, he can't be judged by their
standards."
" I think right's right, and wrong's wrong ; and no
good can ever come of mixing them."
"And what about the color and interest of life?"
Miriam said, speaking out her thoughts aloud, for-
getting who her listener was.
For answer, the good woman stepped to the book-
case and took a Bible down from the shelf. She licked
her thumb, and slowly turned page after page in search
of some passage. Then she brought the book over
to where Miriam sat, and laid it on her knee, pointing
to a verse.
" Read that," she said, and she slowly repeated the
stem and terrible words aloud :
" And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast
it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life
with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast
into hell lire.**
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" That's it, Miriam. I've seen women go into hell
in this world, with both eyes, because they were afraid
to pluck out the one. See that you don't do the same."
She closed the Bible and went quietly out of the
room, and Miriam sat looking out into the glaring
street, and repeated the terrible words over and over
to herself shuddering.
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CHAPTER XL
It was characteristic of both of these women that
after this day they never mentioned Herman's name
again to each other. Miriam applied herself more than
ever to her work, and only saw Cochrane at meal times.
The breathless summer days passed one by one; the
air began to feel used up, and as if there was no vital-
ity left in it. The grass in the parks became brown
and juiceless ; the trees were powdered over with dust,
and all the fashionable world, which makes the bravery
and show of London streets, went out of town, leaving
only a shabby million or two of poor people behind
in the torrid wilderness of stone and lime.
In this parched-up, weary town, Miriam lived on
and worked, learning some of the unteachable secrets
of her trade. From writing descriptions of individ-
uals, she advanced to creating types, an immense step
in artistic achievement. She learned also to forget
Courteis and his maxims, and to trust to her own intu-
ition. She began to let her characters take their own
way, and followed their leading blindly. At her heart
she felt a stirring which told her that these children
of her imagination lived ; but could Cochrane be ex-
pected to understand the interest, the misgiving, or
the rapture, that by turns possessed her about them?
and there was not another soul in London just then
with whom Miriam could hold converse. So she
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worked on without encouragement ; probably the best
way in which to work. She had few letters in these
days. Correspondence with Hindcup consisted in a
biweekly letter from her mother which contained very
little of any interest. The cousins never wrote, and
Miss Foxe was a poor correspondent. So it would
have been ridiculous of Cochrane to seem unconscious
of a startling-looking envelope which lay on the break-
fast table one September morning, addressed to Mir-
iam. It bore the name of a hotel, a Vienna hotel,
printed largely across it, and the very handwriting of
the address was curious. It was sealed, too, with
white sealing wax, and stamped with a strange seal.
As it was impossible to ignore the letter, Cochrane
sensibly decided to speak about it.
"That's a letter you should bum, my dear," she
said, as she passed it across the table. Miriam held
out her hand for the letter, blushing hotly.
"There isn't any fire," she said, glancing at the
grate, which was empty.
" Oh, there's always the range downstairs. Ga-
vina's making the beds just now ; you could step down
easy and bum it in a minute."
" Oh," Miriam cried, " I want to read it so much! "
She had laid the letter on the table, and now she cov-
ered it with her hand, as if to protect it from harm.
To her imagination the envelope felt warm and sen-
tient ; it would have been cmel to burn it.
"Take my advice and put it in the range," said
Cochrane. She had begun a pretense of making tea,
but was really too deeply interested in the fate of
the letter to attend to what she was doing, so she set
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down the teapot again and waited to see what would
happen.
Miriam rose, holding the letter in her hand and
stood irresolute for a minute, then she turned and ran
out of the room. Down the dark little backstair she
ran, across the kitchen, and without giving herself
time to hesitate again, thrust the letter between the
bars of the stove. It caught fire at one corner and
fell down from the bars on to the hearth. Miriam
caught it up and, flaming as it was, pushed it back into
the fke.
" There, there ! it's done ! " she cried out aloud, rub-
bing her fingers, which were all scorched at the tips.
Gavina's hurrying step came down the stair, and
Miriam turned away from the fire.
" I've burned my fingers, Gavina," she said. " I
was burning a letter."
" Lor', miss, that's bad. 'Ave some soap to it.
Whatever made you do that? "
" I was in a hurry," said Miriam. But she did not
seem in such a hurry to reclimb the kitchen stair.
She came up it very slowly, as if every step were an
effort, and sat down listlessly at the breakfast table;
for it was sure to be such an eventless meal now !
"There's a Hindcup letter there too," said Coch-
rane. " But better have your breakfast first ; the
bacon is getting cold."
"Yes, Hindcup letters are seldom exciting," said
Miriam, sipping her tea in an absent sort of way.
What had been in Herman's letter? she wondered.
Certainly nothing tiresome or ordinary — of that she
was sure enough. More probably much that was in-
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teresting and unustial. Had it been a love letter, such
as other women spoke of getting? such as she had
never received in her life? Surely she might have al-
lowed herself to keep it ; perhaps in old age she would
regret having destroyed this evidence that she, too,
had once been loved and desired like other women.
Then breaking in upon these thoughts, she opened her
other letter. It was from her cousin Emmie; an un-
usual occurrence.
Emmie had no great art as a letter writer, and her
announcement that it was Miriam's clear duty to come
home at once was made without much circumlocution.
" Your mother has been ailing for a long time, but
none of us thought there was anything seriously the
matter, and as you had had such words with Mr.
Smaile your mother hesitated to ask you to come home,
and went on hoping she would soon be better. Now
Sydney has been called in, and he finds that she has a
mortal complaint, and says you must come home at
once to look after her. If you return and try to do
your duty, Miriam, we will all try to forget the past.
We always were a family that thought a great deal
of duty." Thus the artless epistle ran.
It was the first intimation Miriam had had of any
failure in her mother's health. She was startled by the
news, and more startled to feel how sadly little her
mother's death would mean to her. They had never
been anything to each other, and the remarriage with
Mr. Smaile had alienated them more and more.
" How dreadful that I should feel so little ! I must do
ever)rthing that I possibly can to make up for my want
of love," she thought. For she knew that the duty
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exacted by want of affection is far more inexorable
than the joyful service of love; no jot or tittle may
be omitted by it, till the whole be fulfilled. Back to
Hindcup she must go, cost her what it might, and do
her duty to the uttermost.
" It's a sudden call," Cochrane pronounced. " Bet-
ter start to-day. You'll never regret doing the best
you can." She noticed the girl's dry eyes, and drew
her own conclusions.
So a few hours saw Miriam off again to Hindcup,
her life in London over for the present. Just eight
months since she had left home, and all the world
different to her already. A new thought in her heart,
a thought that would not be put by ; she had seemed
till now to be helplessly in the grasp of circumstance ;
now circumstance seemed to be in her own hands.
She might go to Herman and change her whole life
forever, if she chose.
Emmie met Miriam at the station. Her manner was
a curious blend of curiosity and condolence. Mrs.
Smaile's illness was the only subject she mentioned;
but an ungovernable curiosity shone from her every
glance.
" Yes, indeed, Miriam ; I knew it would be a great
shock to you ; but Sydney says it will be a long case.
You'll feel it very much, and I daresay you were re-
luctant to leave London too; but I felt I was only
doing my duty as the doctor's wife when I wrote you
all the truth."
" Yes, thank you, Emmie, I am very glad you told
me at once. Mother had given me no idea she
was ill."
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" Well, you and Smaile had such a dispute, I sup-
pose she felt it would be difficult having you at home
again."
" It will be difficult," Miriam agreed.
" You're not looking at all well. I'm sure you are
writing too much. As Sydney said to me the other
day : * I wish,' he said, * that she would be done with
all that writing and get married.' "
" I know you all think that," said Miriam, smiling
to hear the well-worn sentence trotted out once more.
Somehow it had lost its sting now, " Though, after
all," she thought to herself with a rueful smile, " I'm
less likely than I ever was to get married^*
" I'm afraid you will have a very trying time with
poor Aunt Priscilla," Emmie went on. " She is very
fractious. Sydney says it's the nature of these com-
plaints, so you must try to bear with her. And then
old Smaile is always hanging about. We don't think
him very satisfactory."
" That is no surprise to me. I'm glad if you all have
found it out at last."
" Well, at any rate it was your duty to come, and
I'm glad you've done it. Here we are at the door.
Sydney will be up to-morrow morning. Good night,
Miriam."
Yes, here she was, walking up to the well-known
door, as if she had never been away from Hindcup.
The door stood open, and Miriam walked in and en-
tered the parlor where she knew her mother would
be sitting.
Mrs. Smaile sat by the fire doing nothing. She did
not look very ill. Miriam stooped down and kissed
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her, as a sign that peace was restored, for they had
parted in anger.
" I'm glad to see you don't look so ill as I expected,
mother/' she said, after the preliminary explanations
and exclamations had been gone through. Mrs.
Smaile gave a petulant sigh.
" It's very hard everyone telling me I am not look-
ing ill, and me suffering as I do," she said. She be-
gan then to pour into her daughter's ear all the symp-
toms of her illness — ^how she felt this, and how she
felt that; how Mrs. Hobbes had a friend that died of
the same not long ago, and had felt just the same;
how Aunt Pillar had heard of yet another sufferer
whose symptoms were identical.
Miriam listened to it all, realizing mutely what lay
before her. To this pitiful, wandering, disgusting
chronicle she must listen uncomplainingly till the end
came. She wondered, as she had occasion to wonder
a hundred times in days to come, at that want of the
acceptance of the inevitable which characterized her
poor mother. Mrs. Smaile was always wondering why
she must suffer thus; wouldn't it be possible to do
anything more for her than had been done? just as
in former days she used to wonder why she had been
g^ven a queer daughter like Miriam, instead of an or-
dinary, marrying young woman, and whether nothing
could be done to alter the disposition of this unlikely
daughter of hers?
When at last Miriam went up to her own room to
unpack, she felt the dear lamp of hope bum very low
in her heart. She took out the pile of manuscript
which represented the work of the last six months,
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and looked at it fondly. But as she looked, she de-
spaired. How would it be possible for her, here and
now, to finish it? She put it away in a drawer, and
came downstairs ag^in.
Mr. Smaile had come in, and thought to propitiate
his stepdaughter by offering her a fatherly salute. She
shrank away from him as if he had been a toad ; but he
drew her to him, and planted a hairy kiss on her brow.
" Welcome home, my dear," he said, and the cordial
words had an insincere sound to her. Miriam was
disgusted by his kiss. She remembered with a sudden
sense of contrast the feeling of Herman's smooth
brown cheek against her own, and the remembrance
sent a wave of color across her white face.
Mrs. Smaile had been ordered a milk diet; but she
" fancied something fried " ; so there ensued the first
of endless scenes where Miriam had to coax her
mother to eat the prescribed food, and hear a dozen
reasons why she could not or would not do so. At
last, when her own meal was quite cold, she was al-
lowed to begin to eat it. But before she had eaten