Of course there could be no real doubt that it was Miriam, his artist

friend, with whom and Hilda he had spent so many pleasant and familiar

hours, and whom he had last seen at Perugia, bending with Donatello

beneath the bronze pope's benediction. It must be that selfsame Miriam;

but the sensitive sculptor felt a difference of manner, which impressed

him more than he conceived it possible to be affected by so external a

thing. He remembered the gossip so prevalent in Rome on Miriam's first

appearance; how that she was no real artist, but the daughter of an

illustrious or golden lineage, who was merely playing at necessity;

mingling with human struggle for her pastime; stepping out of her native

sphere only for an interlude, just as a princess might alight from her

gilded equipage to go on foot through a rustic lane. And now, after a

mask in which love and death had performed their several parts, she had

resumed her proper character.

"Have you anything to tell me?" cried he impatiently; for nothing causes

a more disagreeable vibration of the nerves than this perception of

ambiguousness in familiar persons or affairs. "Speak; for my spirits and

patience have been much tried to-day."

Miriam put her finger on her lips, and seemed desirous that Kenyon

should know of the presence of a third person. He now saw, indeed, that,

there was some one beside her in the carriage, hitherto concealed by

her attitude; a man, it appeared, with a sallow Italian face, which the

sculptor distinguished but imperfectly, and did not recognize.

"I can tell you nothing," she replied; and leaning towards him, she

whispered,--appearing then more like the Miriam whom he knew than in

what had before passed,--"Only, when the lamp goes out do not despair."

The carriage drove on, leaving Kenyon to muse over this unsatisfactory

interview, which seemed to have served no better purpose than to fill

his mind with more ominous forebodings than before. Why were Donatello

and Miriam in Rome, where both, in all likelihood, might have much to

dread? And why had one and the other addressed him with a question that

seemed prompted by a knowledge of some calamity, either already fallen

on his unconscious head, or impending closely over him?

"I am sluggish," muttered Kenyon, to himself; "a weak, nerveless fool,

devoid of energy and promptitude; or neither Donatello nor Miriam could

have escaped me thus! They are aware of some misfortune that concerns me

deeply. How soon am I to know it too?"

There seemed but a single calamity possible to happen within so narrow

a sphere as that with which the sculptor was connected; and even to that

one mode of evil he could assign no definite shape, but only felt that

it must have some reference to Hilda.




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