r the street was swept clear as if by grapeshot of the
very few persons who might otherwise have been in it at that hour.
Gradually the tumult ceased, and was succeeded by a steady, dull
downpour; Miriam then put on her bonnet and walked home.

The next day she was ill, unaccountably feverish and in great pain.
Hers was one of those natures--happy natures, it may perhaps be
said--which hasten always to a crisis. She had nothing of that
miserable temperament which is never either better or worse, and
remains clouded with slow disease for months or years. She managed to
do her work, but on the following morning she was delirious. She
remembered nothing more till one afternoon when she seemed to wake.
She looked up, and whose face was that which bent over her? It was
Miss Tippit's. Miss Tippit had learned through the doctor what was the
state of affairs, and had managed, notwithstanding the demand which the
lodgings made upon her, to take her share in watching over the
sufferer. Her stepmother had been summoned from Cowfold, and these
two, with the landlady, had tended her and had brought her back to
life. In an instant the scene in Miss Tippit's room when she was sick
passed through Miriam's brain, and she sobbed piteously, lifted up her
arms as if to clasp her heroic benefactor, but the thought was too
great for her, and she fainted. Nevertheless she was recovering, and
when she came to herself again, Miss Tippit was ready with the
intervention of some trifle to distract her attention. As her strength
returned she was able to talk a little, and her first question was--

"Miss Tippit, why did you come here? Oh, if you but knew! What claim
have I on you?"

"Hush, my dear; those days are past. You did not love me then perhaps;
but what of that? I am sure, you will not mind my saying it: 'If ye
love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the
publicans the same?' But I know you did love me really."

"Where is Andrew?"

"Quite well, at home in Cowfold."

That was as much as Miriam could stand then. For weeks to come she was
well-nigh drained of all vitality, and it flowed into her gradually and
with many relapses. The doctor thought she ought to be moved into the
country. Mrs. Tacchi had some friends in one of the villages lying by
the side of the Avon in Wiltshire, just where that part of Salisbury
Plain on which stands Stonehenge slopes down to the river. Miriam knew
nothing of the his