She arose from the young man's side, and stood before him with a sad,
commiserating aspect; it was the look of a ruined soul, bewailing,
in him, a grief less than what her profounder sympathies imposed upon
herself.
"Donatello, we must part," she said, with melancholy firmness. "Yes;
leave me! Go back to your old tower, which overlooks the green valley
you have told me of among the Apennines. Then, all that has passed will
be recognized as but an ugly dream. For in dreams the conscience sleeps,
and we often stain ourselves with guilt of which we should be incapable
in our waking moments. The deed you seemed to do, last night, was
no more than such a dream; there was as little substance in what you
fancied yourself doing. Go; and forget it all!"
"Ah, that terrible face!" said Donatello, pressing his hands over his
eyes. "Do you call that unreal?"
"Yes; for you beheld it with dreaming eyes," replied Miriam. "It was
unreal; and, that you may feel it so, it is requisite that you see this
face of mine no more. Once, you may have thought it beautiful; now, it
has lost its charm. Yet it would still retain a miserable potency' to
bring back the past illusion, and, in its train, the remorse and anguish
that would darken all your life. Leave me, therefore, and forget me."
"Forget you, Miriam!" said Donatello, roused somewhat from his apathy of
despair.
"If I could remember you, and behold you, apart from that frightful
visage which stares at me over your shoulder, that were a consolation,
at least, if not a joy."
"But since that visage haunts you along with mine," rejoined Miriam,
glancing behind her, "we needs must part. Farewell, then! But if
ever--in distress, peril, shame, poverty, or whatever anguish is most
poignant, whatever burden heaviest--you should require a life to be
given wholly, only to make your own a little easier, then summon me! As
the case now stands between us, you have bought me dear, and find me of
little worth. Fling me away, therefore! May you never need me more! But,
if otherwise, a wish--almost an unuttered wish will bring me to you!"
She stood a moment, expecting a reply. But Donatello's eyes had again
fallen on the ground, and he had not, in his bewildered mind and
overburdened heart, a word to respond.
"That hour I speak of may never come," said Miriam. "So
farewell--farewell forever."
"Farewell," said Donatello.
His voice hardly made its way through the environment of unaccustomed
thoughts and emotions which had settled over him like a dense and dark
cloud. Not improbably, he beheld Miriam through so dim a medium that she
looked visionary; heard her speak only in a thin, faint echo.