XII

Miriam

Miriam moved about the house, silently, as always.  She had assumed the extra burden of Barbara’s helplessness as she assumed everything—­without comment, and with outward calm.

[Sidenote:  Joy and Duty]

Only her dark eyes, that burned and glittered so strangely, gave hint of the restlessness within.  She served Ambrose North with steadfast and unfailing devotion; she waited upon Barbara mechanically, but readily.  An observer could not have detected any real difference in her bearing toward the two, yet the service of one was a joy, the other a duty.

After the first week the nurse who had remained with Barbara had gone back to the city.  In this short time, Miriam had learned much from her.  She knew how to change a sheet without disturbing the patient very much; she could give Barbara both food and drink as she lay flat upon her back, and ease her aching body a little in spite of the plaster cast.

Ambrose North restlessly haunted the house and refused to leave Barbara’s bedside unless she was asleep.  Often she feigned slumber to give him opportunity to go outdoors for the exercise he was accustomed to taking.  And so the life of the household moved along in its usual channels.

[Sidenote:  A Living Image]

As she lay helpless, with her pretty colour gone and the great braids of golden hair hanging down on either side, Barbara looked more like her dead mother than ever.  Suffering had brought maturity to her face and sometimes even Miriam was startled by the resemblance.  One day Barbara had asked, thoughtfully, “Aunty, do I look like my mother?” And Miriam had answered, harshly, “You’re the living image of her, if you want to know.”

Miriam repeatedly told herself that Constance had wronged her—­that Ambrose North had belonged to her until the younger girl came from school with her pretty, laughing ways.  He had never had eyes for Miriam after he had once seen Constance, and, in an incredibly short time, they had been married.

Miriam had been forced to stand by and see it; she had made dainty garments for Constance’s trousseau, and had even been obliged to serve as maid of honour at the wedding.  She had seen, day by day, the man’s love increase and the girl’s fancy wane, and, after his blindness came upon him, Constance would often have been cruelly thoughtless had not Miriam sternly held her to her own ideal of wifely duty.

Now, when she had taken a mother’s place to Barbara, and worked for the blind man as his wife would never have dreamed of doing, she saw the faithless one worshipped almost as a household god.  The power to disillusionise North lay in her hands—­of that she was very sure.  What if she should come to him some day with the letter Constance had left for another man and which she had never delivered?  What if she should open it, at his bidding, and read him the burning sentences Constance had written to another during her last hour on earth?  Knowing, beyond doubt, that Constance was faithless, would he at last turn to the woman he had deserted for the sake of a pretty face?  The question racked Miriam by night and by day.