Miriam sank as the heavens darkened.  The strength of which she had lately been conscious forsook her; all her body was oppressed with languor, her mind miserably void.  No book made appeal to her, and the sight of those which she had bought from home was intolerable.  She lay upon a couch, her limbs torpid, burdensome.  Eleanor’s company was worse than useless.

“Please leave me alone,” she said at length.  “The sound of your voice irritates inc.”

An hour went by, and no one disturbed her mood.  Her languor was on the confines of sleep, when a knock at the door caused her to stir impatiently and half raise herself.  It was her maid who entered, holding a note.

“A gentleman has called, ma’am.  He wished me to give you this.”

Miriam glanced at the address, and at once stood up, only her pale face witnessing the lack of energy of a moment ago.

“Is he waiting?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The note was of two or three lines:—­“Will you let me see you?  Of course I mean alone.  It’s a long time since we saw each other.—­R.  E.”

“I will see him in this room.”

The footstep of the maid as she came back along the tiled corridor was accompanied by one much heavier.  Miriam kept her eyes turned to the door; her look was of pained expectancy and of sternness.  She stood close by the window, as if purposely drawing as far away as possible.  The visitor was introduced, and the door closed behind him.

He too, stood still, as far from Miriam as might be.  His age seemed to be seven- or eight-and-twenty, and the cast of his features so strongly resembled Miriam’s that there was no doubt of his being her brother.  Yet he had more beauty as a man than she as a woman.  Her traits were in him developed so as to lose severity and attain a kind of vigour, which at first sight promised a rich and generous nature; his excellent forehead and dark imaginative eyes indicated a mind anything but likely to bear the trammels in which Miriam had grown up.  In the attitude with which he waited for his sister to speak there was both pride and shame; his look fell before hers, but the constrained smile on his lips was one of self-esteem at issue with adversity.  He wore the dress of a gentleman, but it was disorderly.  His light overcoat hung unbuttoned, and in his hand he crushed together a bat of soft felt.

“Why have you come to see me, Reuben?” Miriam asked at length, speaking with difficulty and in an offended Lone.

“Why shouldn’t I, Miriam?” he returned quietly, stepping nearer to her.  “Till a few days ago I knew nothing of the illness you have had, or I should, at all events, have written.  When I heard you had come to Naples, I—­well, I followed.  I might as well be here as anywhere else, and I felt a wish to see you.”

“Why should you wish to see me?  What does it matter to you whether I am well or ill?”

“Yes, it matters, though of course you find it hard to believe.”