the inmost recesses of her heart, seek to
crush them; for it was a sin for her to long so ardently to meet another.
She wished for her husband's presence, as a saviour from herself and the
forbidden desires of this terrible hour.

Hur, the prince of the tribe of Judah, was her husband, not the former
Egyptian, the liberated captive. What had she to ask from the Ephraimite,
whom she had forever refused?

Why should it hurt her that the liberated prisoner did not seek her; why
did she secretly cherish the foolish hope that momentous duties detained
him?

She scarcely saw or heard what was passing around her, and Milcah's
grateful greeting to her husband first informed her that Hur was
approaching.

He had waved his hand to her while still afar, but he came alone, without
Hosea or Joshua, she cared not what the rescued man called himself; and
it angered her to feel that this hurt her, nay, pierced her to the heart.
Yet she esteemed her elderly husband and it was not difficult for her to
give him a cordial welcome.

He answered her greeting joyously and tenderly; but when she pointed to
the re-united pair and extolled him as victor and deliverer of Reuben and
so many hapless men, he frankly owned that he had no right to this
praise, it was the due of "Joshua," whom she herself had summoned in the
name of the Most High to command the warriors of the people.

Miriam turned pale and, in spite of the steepness of the road, pressed
her husband with questions. When she heard that Joshua was resting on the
heights with his father and the young men and refreshing themselves with
wine, and that Hur had promised to resign voluntarily, if Moses desired
to entrust the command to him, her heavy eye-brows contracted in a gloomy
frown beneath her broad forehead and, with curt severity, she exclaimed:

"You are my lord, and it is not seemly for me to oppose you, not even if
you forget your own wife so far that you give place to the man who once
ventured to raise his eyes to her."

"He no longer cares for you," Hur eagerly interrupted; "nay, were I to
give you a letter of divorce, he would no longer desire to possess you."

"Would he not?" asked Miriam with a forced smile. "Do you owe this
information to him?"

"He has devoted himself, body and soul, to the welfare of the people and
renounces the love of woman," replied Hur. But his wife exclaimed:

"Renunciation is easy, where desire would bring nothing save fresh
rejection a