"You mistake your own will for an iron necessity," said Miriam;
"otherwise, you might have suffered me to glide past you like a ghost,
when we met among those ghosts of ancient days. Even now you might bid
me pass as freely."
"Never!" said he, with unmitigable will; "your reappearance has
destroyed the work of years. You know the power that I have over you.
Obey my bidding; or, within a short time, it shall be exercised: nor
will I cease to haunt you till the moment comes."
"Then," said Miriam more calmly, "I foresee the end, and have already
warned you of it. It will be death!"
"Your own death, Miriam,--or mine?" he asked, looking fixedly at her.
"Do you imagine me a murderess?" said she, shuddering; "you, at least,
have no right to think me so!"
"Yet," rejoined he, with a glance of dark meaning, "men have said that
this white hand had once a crimson stain." He took her hand as he spoke,
and held it in his own, in spite of the repugnance, amounting to nothing
short of agony, with which she struggled to regain it. Holding it up
to the fading light (for there was already dimness among the trees),
he appeared to examine it closely, as if to discover the imaginary
blood-stain with which he taunted her. He smiled as he let it go. "It
looks very white," said he; "but I have known hands as white, which all
the water in the ocean would not have washed clean."
"It had no stain," retorted Miriam bitterly, "until you grasped it in
your own."
The wind has blown away whatever else they may have spoken.
They went together towards the town, and, on their way, continued to
make reference, no doubt, to some strange and dreadful history of their
former life, belonging equally to this dark man and to the fair and
youthful woman whom he persecuted. In their words, or in the breath that
uttered them, there seemed to be an odor of guilt, and a scent of blood.
Yet, how can we imagine that a stain of ensanguined crime should attach
to Miriam! Or how, on the other hand, should spotless innocence be
subjected to a thraldom like that which she endured from the spectre,
whom she herself had evoked out of the darkness! Be this as it might,
Miriam, we have reason to believe, still continued to beseech him,
humbly, passionately, wildly, only to go his way, and leave her free to
follow her own sad path.
Thus they strayed onward through the green wilderness of the Borghese
grounds, and soon came near the city wall, where, had Miriam raised her
eyes, she might have seen Hilda and the sculptor leaning on the parapet.
But she walked in a mist of trouble, and could distinguish little beyond
its limits. As they came within public observation, her persecutor fell
behind, throwing off the imperious manner which he had assumed during
their solitary interview. The Porta del Popolo swarmed with life. The
merry-makers, who had spent the feast-day outside the walls, were now
thronging in; a party of horsemen were entering beneath the arch; a
travelling carriage had been drawn up just within the verge, and was
passing through the villainous ordeal of the papal custom-house. In the
broad piazza, too, there was a motley crowd.