“Very grateful to you was Katharine.  All you did about the duel, I told her.  She knows her husband had not been alive to-day, but for you.  O Miriam, if you had not spoken!”

“I should have had the stain of blood on my conscience.  I did right to speak.  My grandfather said to me, ‘You did quite right, my dear.’”

Then Bram told her all the little things that had grieved him, and they talked as dear companions might talk; only, beneath all the common words of daily life, there was some subtile sweetness that made their voices low and their glances shy and tremulous.

It was not more than an hour ere Cohen came home.  He looked quickly at the young people, and then stood by Bram, and began to talk courteously of passing events.  Miriam leaned, listening, against a magnificent “apostle’s cabinet” in black oak—­one of those famous ones made in Nuremburg in the fifteenth century, with locks and hinges of hammered-steel work, and finely chased handles of the same material.  Against its carved and pillared background her dark drapery fell in almost unnoticed grace; but her fair face and small hands, with the mass of white narcissus in them, had a singular and alluring beauty.  She affected Bram as something sweetly supernatural might have done.  It was an effort for him to answer Cohen; he felt as if it would be impossible for him to go away.

But the clock struck the hour, and the shop boy began to put up the shutters; and the old man walked to the door, taking Bram with him.  Then Miriam, smiling her farewell, passed like a shadow into the darker shadows beyond; and Bram went home, wondering to find that she had cast out of his heart hatred, malice, fretful worry, and all uncharitableness.  How could he blend them with thoughts of her? and how could he forget the slim, dark-robed figure, or the lovely face against the old black kas, crowned with its twelve sombre figures, or the white slender hands holding the white fragrant flowers?

[Illustration:  Tail-piece]

[Illustration:  Chapter heading]

XI.

“Each man’s homestead is his golden milestone,
Is the central point from which he measures
Every distance
Through the gateways of the world around him.”

There are certain months in every life which seem to be full of fate, good or evil, for that life; and May was Katherine Hyde’s luck month.  It was on a May afternoon that Hyde had asked her love; it was on a May night she fled with him through the gray shadows of the misty river.  Since then a year had gone by, and it was May once more,—­an English May, full of the magic of the month; clear skies, and young foliage, and birds’ songs, the cool, woody smell of wall-flowers, and the ethereal perfume of lilies.