CHAPTER VIII.

Whatever my flash of conviction might have been, all suspicions against Evelyn must have been allayed by the manner in which she received the information of the loss of the deposits behind the mirror.

Her shrieks filled the house; another physician was hastily summoned in Dr. Craig’s absence, who gave her disease or seizure a Latin name—­wrote a Greek or Hebrew prescription—­or something equally unintelligible, and vanished ghost-like, in the manner most approved of by modern practitioners.

There was no hard epithet that Evelyn did not apply to Mr. Basil Bainrothe during her hysterical mania, and before the doctor’s arrival; but, on her recovery, she begged me to repeat nothing of the sort, if she had been indiscreet enough to let out her true opinion of him and his measures, in a moment of irrepressible emotion.  “For,” she pursued, “it is expedient for us to keep on terms with the man, at least for the present, and in no way harass or exasperate him—­we are completely in his hands now, Miriam—­we must watch our opportunity—­”

“I do not see that,” I interrupted; “less now than ever, it seems to me.  What more can he do for or against us now?  Our property is all gone—­except this house, plate, and furniture, and my mother’s diamonds—­all of winch are tangible and visible, and in our own possession.  We have no debts—­you pay house-bills monthly, and I, fortunately, have just settled off every account I have in the world, and have five hundred Spanish dollars to start anew with—­my savings during papa’s lifetime.  I hoarded it, fortunately, in this form for a missionary purpose you remember, Evelyn, but afterward changed my mind.”

“Yes, I remember; merely because the person it was intended for prayed that the Jews might finally be exterminated.”

“Was not that enough, Evelyn?  The man who could utter such a prayer was no Christian, and unfit for religious teaching.  Since then I have come to the conclusion that there is a great deal of undue and very impertinent meddling with the heathen; who are entitled to their own mode of worship as well as of government, and who I think are not yet ripe for Christianity.”

“You have strange notions, Miriam; you talk like an old French philosopher.”

“I never knew there was such a thing—­a French sophist I am afraid you mean.  No, I am not a sophist, Evelyn; any thing else than that!  I wish sometimes I did not see so clearly.  I love, I idolize the truth alone!”

She colored—­sighed.  God knows I was not thinking of her at that moment, or speaking with that reference, however I may have had reason to do so.

Is it not strange that our dreams often present to us, in our own despite, the vivid, photographic pictures struck by sleep from the dim, unconscious negative of our waking judgment, which we refuse to recognize as verities in the light of our open-eyed, daytime responsibility?  I, who had declared myself no sophist, knew later that I had deceived my own heart, which spoke out so truthfully in dreams of sleep, and refused to be silenced in the dead hour of night, however I might stifle its suggestions by day.