"O, my friend," cried she, with sudden passion, "will you be my friend indeed? I am lonely, lonely, lonely! There is a secret in my heart that burns me,--that tortures me! Sometimes I fear to go mad of it; sometimes Ihope to die of it; but neither of the two happens. Ah, if I could but whisper it to only one human soul! And you--you see far into womanhood;you receive it widely into your large view. Perhaps--perhaps, but Heaven only knows, you might understand me! O, let me speak!""Miriam, dear friend," replied the sculptor, "if I can help you, speak freely, as to a brother.""Help me? No!" said Miriam.
Kenyon's response had been perfectly frank and kind; and yet the subtlety of Miriam's emotion detected a certain reserve and alarm in his warmly expressed readiness to hear her story. In his secret soul, to say the truth, the sculptor doubted whether it were well for this poor, suffering girl to speak what she so yearned to say, or for him to listen. If there were any active duty of friendship to be performed, then, indeed, he would joyfully have come forward to do his best. But if it were only a pent-up heart that sought an outlet? in that case it was by no means so certain that a confession would do good. The more her secret struggled and fought to be told, the more certain would it be to change all former relations that had subsisted between herself and the friend to whom she might reveal it. Unless he could give her all the sympathy, and just the kind of sympathy that the occasion required, Miriam would hate him by and by, and herself still more, if he let her speak.
This was what Kenyon said to himself; but his reluctance, after all, and whether he were conscious of it or no, resulted from a suspicion that had crept into his heart and lay there in a dark corner. Obscure as it was, when Miriam looked into his eyes, she detected it at once.
"Ah, I shall hate you!" cried she, echoing the thought which he had not spoken; she was half choked with the gush of passion that was thus turned back upon her. "You are as cold and pitiless as your own marble.""No; but full of sympathy, God knows!" replied he.
In truth, his suspicions, however warranted by the mystery in which Miriam was enveloped, had vanished in the earnestness of his kindly and sorrowful emotion. He was now ready to receive her trust.
"Keep your sympathy, then, for sorrows that admit of such solace," said she, making a strong effort to compose herself. "As for my griefs, I know how to manage them. It was all a mistake: you can do nothing for me, unless you petrify me into a marble companion for your Cleopatra there;and I am not of her sisterhood, I do. assure you. Forget this foolish scene, my friend, and never let me see a reference to it in your eyes when they meet mine hereafter.""Since you desire it, all shall be forgotten," answered the sculptor, pressing her hand as she departed; "or, if ever I can serve you, let my readiness to do so be remembered. Meanwhile, dear Miriam, let us meet in the same clear, friendly light as heretofore.""You are less sincere than I thought you," said Miriam, "if you try to make me think that there will be no change."As he attended her through the antechamber, she pointed to the statue of the pearl-diver.
"My secret is not a pearl," said she; "yet a man might drown himself in plunging after it."After Kenyon had closed the door, she went wearily down the staircase, but paused midway, as if debating with herself whether to return.
"The mischief was done," thought she; "and I might as well have had the solace that ought to come with it. I have lost,--by staggering a little way beyond the mark, in the blindness of my distress, I have lost, as we shall hereafter find, the genuine friendship of this clear-minded, honorable, true-hearted young man, and all for nothing. What if I should go back this moment and compel him to listen?"She ascended two or three of the stairs, but again paused, murmured to herself, and shook her head.
"No, no, no," she thought; "and I wonder how I ever came to dream of it.
Unless I had his heart for my own,--and that is Hilda's, nor would I steal it from her,--it should never be the treasure Place of my secret. It is no precious pearl, as I just now told him; but my dark-red carbuncle--red as blood--is too rich a gem to put into a stranger's casket."She went down the stairs, and found her shadow waiting for her in the street.
