Miriam made no comment whatever.  Mr. Willcoxen seemed surprised and grieved at her silence.

“What have you now to say, Miriam?”

“Nothing.”

“‘Nothing?’ What do you think of my explanation?”

“I think nothing.  My mind is in an agony of doubt and conjecture.  I must be governed by stern facts—­not by my own prepossessions.  I must act upon the evidences in my possession—­not upon your explanation of them,” said Miriam, distractedly, as she arose to leave the room.

“And you will denounce me, Miriam?”

“It is my insupportable duty! it is my fate! my doom! for it will kill me!”

“Yet you will do it!”

“I will.”

“Yet turn, dear Miriam!  Look on me once more! take my hand! since you act from necessity, do nothing from anger—­turn and take my hand.”

She turned and stood—­such a picture of tearless agony!  She met his gentle, compassionate glance—­it melted—­it subdued her.

“Oh, would Heaven that I might die, rather than do this thing!  Would Heaven I might die! for my heart turns to you; it turns, and I love you so—­oh!  I love you so! never, never so much as now! my brother! my brother!” and she sunk down and seized his hands and wept over them.

“What, Miriam! do you love me, believing me to be guilty?”

“To have been guilty—­not to be guilty—­you have suffered remorse—­you have repented, these many long and wretched years.  Oh! surely repentance washes out guilt!”

“And you can now caress and weep over my hands, believing them to have been crimsoned with the life-stream of your first and best friend?”

“Yes! yes! yes! yes!  Oh! would these tears, my very heart sobs forth, might wash them pure again!  Yes! yes! whether you be guilty or not, my brother! the more I listen to my heart, the more I love you, and I cannot help it!”

“It is because your heart is so much wiser than your head, dear Miriam!  Your heart divines the guiltlessness that your reason refuses to credit!  Do what you feel that you must, dear Miriam—­but, in the meantime, let us still be brother and sister—­embrace me once more.”

With anguish bordering on insanity, she threw herself into his arms for a moment—­was pressed to his heart, and then breaking away, she escaped from the room to her own chamber.  And there, with her half-crazed brain and breaking heart—­like one acting or forced to act in a ghastly dream, she began to arrange her evidence—­collect the letters, the list of witnesses and all, preparatory to setting forth upon her fatal mission in the morning.

With the earliest dawn of morning, Miriam left her room.  In passing the door of Mr. Willcoxen’s chamber, she suddenly stopped—­a spasm seized her heart, and convulsed her features—­she clasped her hands to pray, then, as if there were wild mockery in the thought, flung them fiercely apart, and hurried on her way.  She felt that she was leaving the house never to return; she thought that she should depart without encountering any of its inmates.  She was surprised, therefore, to meet Paul in the front passage.  He came up and intercepted her: