With these words he took leave of Miriam and her husband by a short wave of the hand, and vanished in the darkness of the night.

Hur gazed gloomily after him in silence until the footsteps of the belated guest had died away in the sleeping camp; then the ill-repressed wrath of the grave man, who had hitherto regarded his young wife with tender admiration, knew no bounds.

With two long strides he stood directly before her as she gazed with a troubled look into the fire, her face even paler than his own.  His voice had lost its metallic harmony, and sounded shrill and sharp as he exclaimed: 

“I had the courage to woo a maiden who supposed herself to be nearer to God than other women, and now that she has become my wife she makes me atone for such presumption.”

“Atone?” escaped Miriam’s livid lips, and a defiant glance blazed at him from her black eyes.  But, undismayed, he continued, grasping her hand with so firm a pressure that it hurt her: 

“Aye, you make me atone for it!—­Shame on me, if I permit this disgraceful hour to be followed by similar ones.”

Miriam strove to wrest her hand from his clasp, but he would not release it, and went on: 

“I sought you, that you might be the pride of my house.  I expected to sow honor, and I reap disgrace; for what could be more humiliating to a man than to have a wife who rules him, who presumes to wound with hostile words the heart of the friend who is protected by the laws of hospitality?  A woman of different mould, a simple-hearted, upright wife, who looked at her husband’s past life, instead of planning how to increase his greatness, that she might share it with him, need not have had me shout into her ears that Hur has garnered honors and dignities enough, during his long existence, to be able to spare a portion of them without any loss of esteem.  It is not the man who holds the chief command, but the one who shows the most self-sacrificing love for the people that is greatest in the eyes of Jehovah.  You desire a high place, you seek to be honored by the multitude as one who is summoned by the Lord.  I shall not forbid it, so long as you do not forget what the duty of a wife commands.  You owe me love also; for you vowed to give it on your marriage day; but the human heart can bestow only what it possesses, and Hosea is right when he says that love, which is warm itself and warms others, is a feeling alien to your cold nature.”

With these words he turned his back upon her and went to the dark portion of the tent, while Miriam remained standing by the fire, whose flickering light illumined her beautiful, pallid face.

With clenched teeth and hands pressed on her heaving bosom, she stood gazing at the spot where he had disappeared.

Her grey-haired husband had confronted her in the full consciousness of his dignity, a noble man worthy of reverence, a true, princely chief of his tribe, and infinitely her superior.  His every word had pierced her bosom like the thrust of a lance.  The power of truth had given each its full emphasis and held up to Miriam a mirror that showed her an image from which she shrank.