I recognized, faintly, the step of Bainrothe on the stairway, distinguishing it readily from any other, as it passed and repassed my hidden door.

October had now set in, with a chilliness unusual to that bland season, and I asked for and obtained permission to have a fire kindled in the wide and gloomy grate of my chamber, hitherto unused by me.

About this household flame, Ernie, Mrs. Clayton, and I gathered harmoniously; she with her unfailing work-basket, I with book or pencil, the baby with his blocks and dominoes and painted pictures—­the only happy and truly industrious spirit of the group.  My true work was done—­else might it never have been completed.

The presence of fire was indispensable to Mrs. Clayton, and, from the time of its first lighting, she left me but seldom alone.  Her rheumatic limbs needed the solace that I had no heart to grudge her, distasteful as she was to me, and becoming more so day by day—­false as I now knew her to be—­false at heart.

How hatred grows, when we once admit the germ—­not, like love, parasitically—­but strong, stanch, stern, alone throwing down fresh roots, even hour by hour, like the banyan, monarch of the Eastern forest.  I am afraid I have a turn for this passion naturally, but for love as well, ten times more intense—­so that one pretty well counterbalances the other.

To carry out the vine-simile, I might as well add at once that, in the end, the parasitical plant has triumphed, and stifled the sterner growth.  In other words, Christianity has conquered Judaism.

“I suppose I may soon expect a visit from Mr. Bainrothe,” I said one day to Mrs. Clayton.  “I think my birthday approaches; can you tell me the day of the month?  I know that of the week from remembering the Sabbath chimes.”

I thought she started slightly at this announcement, but she replied, unflinchingly: 

“The 5th, yes, I am quite sure it is the 5th of the month.”

“Do you never see a newspaper, Mrs. Clayton, and, if so, can you not indulge me with a glimpse of one?  I think it would do me good—­remind me that I was alive, I have seen none since the account of Miss Lamarque’s safety, for which God be praised."[5]

“No, Miss Monfort, it is simply impossible.  I should be transgressing the rules of the establishment.”

“Dr. Englehart’s, I suppose, as if indeed there were such a person,” I said, impetuously—­unguardedly.

“Do you pretend to doubt it?” she asked, slowly, setting her greedy eyes upon my face, and dropping her darning-work and shell upon her knee.  Why, what possesses you to-day, Miss Miriam?”

“I shall answer no questions, Mrs. Clayton—­this right, at least, I reserve—­but, the fact is, I doubt every thing lately, except this child and God.  I do not believe my Creator will forsake me utterly—­I shall not, till the end.”  And tears rolled down my face, the first I had shed for days.  I had been petrified, of late, by the resolution I was making, and the effort of mind it had cost me.  I had felt, until now, that I was hardening into atone.