Bram would not read it at all. He was too full of shame and trouble at the event; and the moments went as if they moved on lead. But the unhappy day wore away to its evening; and after tea he gathered a great nosegay of narcissus, and went to Isaac Cohen's. He did not "hang about the steps," as Joris in his temper had said. Miriam was not one of those girls who sit in the door to be gazed at by every passing man. He went into the store, and she seemed to know his footstep. He had no need to speak: she came at once from the mystery behind the crowded place into the clearer light. Plain and dark were her garments, and Bram would have been unable to describe her dress; but it was as fitting to her as are the green leaves of the rose-tree to the rose.
Their acquaintance had evidently advanced since that anxious evening when she had urged upon Bram the intelligence of the duel between Hyde and Neil Semple; for Bram gave her the flowers without embarrassment, and she buried her sweet face in their sweet petals, and then lifted it with a smile at once grateful and confidential. Then they began to talk of Katherine.
[Illustration: Plain and dark were her garments]
"She was so beautiful and so kind," said Miriam; "just a week since she passed here, with some violets in her hand; and, when she saw me, she ran up the steps, and said, 'I have brought them for you;' and she clasped my fingers, and looked so pleasantly in my face. If I had a sister, Bram, I think she would smile at me in the same way."
"Very grateful to you was Katharine. All you did about the duel, I told her. She knows her husband had not been alive to-day, but for you. O Miriam, if you had not spoken!"
"I should have had the stain of blood on my conscience. I did right to speak. My grandfather said to me, 'You did quite right, my dear.'"
Then Bram told her all the little things that had grieved him, and they talked as dear companions might talk; only, beneath all the common words of daily life, there was some subtile sweetness that made their voices low and their glances shy and tremulous.
It was not more than an hour ere Cohen came home. He looked quickly at the young people, and then stood by Bram, and began to talk courteously of passing events. Miriam leaned, listening, against a magnificent "apostle's cabinet" in black oak--one of those famous ones made in Nuremburg in the fifteenth century, with locks and hinges of hammered-steel work, and finely chased handles of the same material. Against its carved and pillared background her dark drapery fell in almost unnoticed grace; but her fair face and small hands, with the mass of white narcissus in them, had a singular and alluring beauty. She affected Bram as something sweetly supernatural might have done. It was an effort for him to answer Cohen; he felt as if it would be impossible for him to go away.