She was on the point of departing, but turned back again from the threshold.

“This is a terrible secret to be kept in a young girl’s bosom,” she observed; “what will you do with it, my poor child?”

“Heaven help and guide me,” answered Hilda, bursting into tears; “for the burden of it crushes me to the earth!  It seems a crime to know of such a thing, and to keep it to myself.  It knocks within my heart continually, threatening, imploring, insisting to be let out!  O my mother!—­my mother!  Were she yet living, I would travel over land and sea to tell her this dark secret, as I told all the little troubles of my infancy.  But I am alone—­alone!  Miriam, you were my dearest, only friend.  Advise me what to do.”

This was a singular appeal, no doubt, from the stainless maiden to the guilty woman, whom she had just banished from her heart forever.  But it bore striking testimony to the impression which Miriam’s natural uprightness and impulsive generosity had made on the friend who knew her best; and it deeply comforted the poor criminal, by proving to her that the bond between Hilda and herself was vital yet.

As far as she was able, Miriam at once responded to the girl’s cry for help.

“If I deemed it good for your peace of mind,” she said, “to bear testimony against me for this deed in the face of all the world, no consideration of myself should weigh with me an instant.  But I believe that you would find no relief in such a course.  What men call justice lies chiefly in outward formalities, and has never the close application and fitness that would be satisfactory to a soul like yours.  I cannot be fairly tried and judged before an earthly tribunal; and of this, Hilda, you would perhaps become fatally conscious when it was too late.  Roman justice, above all things, is a byword.  What have you to do with it?  Leave all such thoughts aside!  Yet, Hilda, I would not have you keep my secret imprisoned in your heart if it tries to leap out, and stings you, like a wild, venomous thing, when you thrust it back again.  Have you no other friend, now that you have been forced to give me up?”

“No other,” answered Hilda sadly.

“Yes; Kenyon!” rejoined Miriam.

“He cannot be my friend,” said Hilda, “because—­because—­I have fancied that he sought to be something more.”

“Fear nothing!” replied Miriam, shaking her head, with a strange smile.  “This story will frighten his new-born love out of its little life, if that be what you wish.  Tell him the secret, then, and take his wise and honorable counsel as to what should next be done.  I know not what else to say.”

“I never dreamed,” said Hilda,—­“how could you think it?—­of betraying you to justice.  But I see how it is, Miriam.  I must keep your secret, and die of it, unless God sends me some relief by methods which are now beyond my power to imagine.  It is very dreadful.  Ah! now I understand how the sins of generations past have created an atmosphere of sin for those that follow.  While there is a single guilty person in the universe, each innocent one must feel his innocence tortured by that guilt.  Your deed, Miriam, has darkened the whole sky!”