Now, however, she had taken it out with a fixed purpose, and she stood and gazed upon it.  Presently she took it up, rolled it in the paper, took her lamp, and slowly left her room, and passed along the passages leading to Mr. Willcoxen’s library.

The storm howled and raved as she went, and the strong blast, driving through the dilapidated window-sashes, nearly extinguished her light before she reached the study door.

She blew out the light and set down the lamp, and rapped at the door.  Again and again she rapped, without awakening any response from within.

Then she turned the latch, opened the door, and entered.  No wonder she had received no answer.

The abstracted man before her seemed dead to every sight and sound around him.  He sat before the table in the middle of the room, his elbow on the mahogany; his face bowed upon his hand, his haggard countenance revealing a still, speechless despair as awful as it was profound.

Miriam approached and stood by him, her breath went by his cheek, so near she stood, and yet her presence was unheeded.  She stooped to see the object upon which he gazed—­the object that now shut out all the world from his sight—­it was a long bright tress of golden auburn hair.

“Mr. Willcoxen!”

He did not hear her—­how should he hear her low tones, when he heard not the cannonading of the storm that shook the house to its foundations?

“Mr. Willcoxen!” she said once more.

But he moved not a muscle.

“Mr. Willcoxen!” she repeated, laying her hand upon his arm.

He looked up.  The expression of haggard despair softened out of his countenance.

“Is it you, my dear?” he said.  “What has brought you here, Miriam?  Were you afraid of the storm?  There is no danger, dear child—­it has nearly expended its force, and will soon be over—­but sit down.”

“Oh, no! it is not the storm that has brought me here, though I scarcely remember a storm so violent at this season of the year, except one—­this night seven years ago—­the night that Marian Mayfield was murdered!”

He started—­it is true that he had been thinking of the same dread tragedy—­but to hear it suddenly mentioned pierced him like an unexpected sword thrust.

Miriam proceeded, speaking in a strange, level monotone, as if unwilling or afraid to trust her voice far: 

“I came this evening to restore a small but costly article of virtu, belonging to you, and left in my care some time ago by the boy Melchisedek.  It is an antique dagger—­somewhat rusty and spotted.  Here it is.”

And she laid the poniard down upon the tress of hair before him.

He sprang up as if it had been a viper—­his whole frame shook, and the perspiration started from his livid forehead.

Miriam, keeping her eye upon him, took the dagger up.