ertain marchese, the representative
of another branch of her paternal house,--a family arrangement between
two persons of disproportioned ages, and in which feeling went for
nothing. Most Italian girls of noble rank would have yielded themselves
to such a marriage as an affair of course. But there was something
in Miriam's blood, in her mixed race, in her recollections of her
mother,--some characteristic, finally, in her own nature,--which
had given her freedom of thought, and force of will, and made this
prearranged connection odious to her. Moreover, the character of her
destined husband would have been a sufficient and insuperable objection;
for it betrayed traits so evil, so treacherous, so vile, and yet so
strangely subtle, as could only be accounted for by the insanity which
often develops itself in old, close-kept races of men, when long unmixed
with newer blood. Reaching the age when the marriage contract should
have been fulfilled, Miriam had utterly repudiated it.

Some time afterwards had occurred that terrible event to which Miriam
had alluded when she revealed her name; an event, the frightful and
mysterious circumstances of which will recur to many minds, but of which
few or none can have found for themselves a satisfactory explanation. It
only concerns the present narrative, inasmuch as the suspicion of being
at least an accomplice in the crime fell darkly and directly upon Miriam
herself.

"But you know that I am innocent!" she cried, interrupting herself
again, and looking Kenyon in the face.

"I know it by my deepest consciousness," he answered; "and I know it by
Hilda's trust and entire affection, which you never could have won had
you been capable of guilt."

"That is sure ground, indeed, for pronouncing me innocent," said Miriam,
with the tears gushing into her eyes. "Yet I have since become a horror
to your saint-like Hilda, by a crime which she herself saw me help to
perpetrate!"

She proceeded with her story. The great influence of her family
connections had shielded her from some of the consequences of her
imputed guilt. But, in her despair, she had fled from home, and had
surrounded her flight with such circumstances as rendered it the most
probable conclusion that she had committed suicide. Miriam, however, was
not of the feeble nature which takes advantage of that obvious and poor
resource in earthly difficulties. She flung herself upon the world,
and speedily created a new sphere, in w