Reminiscences of Miriam

When Hilda and himself turned away from the unfinished bust, the
sculptor's mind still dwelt upon the reminiscences which it suggested.
"You have not seen Donatello recently," he remarked, "and therefore
cannot be aware how sadly he is changed."

"No wonder!" exclaimed Hilda, growing pale.

The terrible scene which she had witnessed, when Donatello's face
gleamed out in so fierce a light, came back upon her memory, almost
for the first time since she knelt at the confessional. Hilda, as is
sometimes the case with persons whose delicate organization requires
a peculiar safeguard, had an elastic faculty of throwing off such
recollections as would be too painful for endurance. The first shock
of Donatello's and Miriam's crime had, indeed, broken through the frail
defence of this voluntary forgetfulness; but, once enabled to relieve
herself of the ponderous anguish over which she had so long brooded, she
had practised a subtile watchfulness in preventing its return.

"No wonder, do you say?" repeated the sculptor, looking at her with
interest, but not exactly with surprise; for he had long suspected that
Hilda had a painful knowledge of events which he himself little more
than surmised. "Then you know!--you have heard! But what can you
possibly have heard, and through what channel?"

"Nothing!" replied Hilda faintly. "Not one word has reached my ears from
the lips of any human being. Let us never speak of it again! No, no!
never again!"

"And Miriam!" said Kenyon, with irrepressible interest. "Is it also
forbidden to speak of her?"

"Hush! do not even utter her name! Try not to think of it!" Hilda
whispered. "It may bring terrible consequences!"