
"Ah, this is hard!  Ah, this is terrible!" murmured Miriam, dropping her
forehead in her hands.	In a moment or two she looked up again, as pale as
death, but with a composed countenance: "I always said, Hilda, that you
were merciless; for I had a perception of it, even while you loved me best.
You have no sin, nor any conception of what it is; and therefore you are
so terribly severe!  As an angel, you are not amiss; but, as a human
creature, and a woman among earthly men and women, you need a sin to
soften you."

"God forgive me," said Hilda, "if I have said a needlessly cruel word!"

"Let it pass," answered Miriam; "I, whose heart it has smitten upon,
forgive you.  And tell me, before we part forever, what have you seen or
known of me, since we last met?"

"A terrible thing, Miriam," said Hilda, growing paler than before.

"Do you see it written in my face, or painted in my eyes?"  inquired
Miriam, her trouble seeking relief in a half-frenzied raillery.  "I would
fain know how it is that Providence, or fate, brings eye-witnesses to
watch us, when we fancy ourselves acting in the remotest privacy.  Did all
Rome see it, then?  Or, at least, our merry company of artists?  Or is it
some blood-stain on me, or death-scent in my garments?	They say that
monstrous deformities sprout out of fiends, who once were lovely angels.
Do you perceive such in me already? Tell me, by our past friendship, Hilda,
all you know."

Thus adjured, and frightened by the wild emotion which Miriam could not
suppress, Hilda strove to tell what she had witnessed.

"After the rest of the party had passed on, I went back to speak to you,"
she said; "for there seemed to be a trouble on your mind, and I wished to
share it with you, if you could permit me.  The door of the little
courtyard was partly shut; but I pushed it open, and saw you within, and
Donatello, and a third person, whom I had before noticed in the shadow of
a niche.  He approached you, Miriam.  You knelt to him!  I saw Donatello
spring upon him!  I would have shrieked, but my throat was dry.  I would
have rushed forward, but my limbs seemed rooted to the earth.  It was like
a flash of lightning.  A look passed from your eyes to Donatello's--a
look"--"Yes, Hilda, yes!"  exclaimed Miriam, with intense eagerness.  "Do
not pause now!	That look?"

"It revealed all your heart, Miriam," continued Hilda, covering her eyes
as if to shut out the recollection; "a look of hatred, triumph, vengeance,
and, as it were, joy at some unhoped-for relief."

"Ah!  Donatello was right, then," murmured Miriam, who shook throughout
all her frame.	"My eyes bade him do it!  Go on, Hilda."

"It all passed so quickly, all like a glare of lightning," said Hilda,
"and yet it seemed to me that Donatello had paused, while one might draw a
breath.  But that look!  Ah, Miriam, spare me.	Need I tell more?"

"No more; there needs no more, Hilda," replied Miriam, bowing her head, as
if listening to a sentence of condemnation from a supreme tribunal.  "It
is enough!  You have satisfied my mind on a point where it was greatly
disturbed.  Henceforward I shall be quiet.  Thank you, Hilda."

She was on the point of departing, but turned back again from the
threshold.

"This is a terrible secret to be kept in a young girl's bosom," she
observed; "what will you do with it, my poor child?"

"Heaven help and guide me," answered Hilda, bursting into tears; "for the
burden of it crushes me to the earth!  It seems a crime to know of such a
thing, and to keep it to myself.  It knocks within my heart continually,
threatening, imploring, insisting to be let out!  O my mother!--my mother!
Were she yet living, I would travel over land and sea to tell her this
dark secret, as I told all the little troubles of my infancy.  But I am
alone--alone!  Miriam, you were my dearest, only friend.  Advise me what
to do."

This was a singular appeal, no doubt, from the stainless maiden to the
guilty woman, whom she had just banished from her heart forever.  But it
bore striking testimony to the impression which Miriam's natural
uprightness and impulsive generosity had made on the friend who knew her
best; and it deeply comforted the poor criminal, by proving to her that
the bond between Hilda and herself was vital yet.

As far as she was able, Miriam at once responded to the girl's cry for
help.

"If I deemed it good for your peace of mind," she said, "to bear testimony
against me for this deed in the face of all the world, no consideration of
myself should weigh with me an instant.  But I believe that you would
find no relief in such a course.  What men call justice lies chiefly in
outward formalities, and has never the close application and fitness that
would be satisfactory to a soul like yours.  I cannot be fairly tried and
judged before an earthly tribunal; and of this, Hilda, you would perhaps
become fatally conscious when it was too late.	Roman justice, above all
things, is a byword.  What have you to do with it?  Leave all such
thoughts aside! Yet, Hilda, I would not have you keep my secret imprisoned
in your heart if it tries to leap out, and stings you, like a wild,
venomous thing, when you thrust it back again.	Have you no other friend,
now that you have been forced to give me up?"

"No other," answered Hilda sadly.

"Yes; Kenyon!"	rejoined Miriam.

"He cannot be my friend," said Hilda, "because--because--I have fancied
that he sought to be something more."

"Fear nothing!"  replied Miriam, shaking her head, with a strange smile.
"This story will frighten his new-born love out of its little life, if
that be what you wish.	Tell him the secret, then, and take his wise and
honorable counsel as to what should next be done.  I know not what else to
say."

"I never dreamed," said Hilda,--"how could you think it?--of betraying you
to justice.  But I see how it is, Miriam.  I must keep your secret, and
die of it, unless God sends me some relief by methods which are now beyond
my power to imagine.  It is very dreadful.  Ah!  now I understand how the
sins of generations past have created an atmosphere of sin for those that
follow.  While there is a single guilty person in the universe, each
innocent one must feel his innocence tortured by that guilt.  Your deed,
Miriam, has darkened the whole sky!"

Poor Hilda turned from her unhappy friend, and, sinking on her knees in a
corner of the chamber, could not be prevailed upon to utter another word.
And Miriam, with a long regard from the threshold, bade farewell to this
doves' nest, this one little nook of pure thoughts and innocent
enthusiasms, into which she had brought such trouble.  Every crime
destroys more Edens than our own!





End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of "The Marble Faun, Volume 1"
by Hawthorne.

