"Take your own course, then, Miriam," said Kenyon; "and, doubtless,
the crisis being what it is, your spirit is better instructed for its
emergencies than mine."
While the foregoing words passed between them they had withdrawn a
little from the immediate vicinity of the statue, so as to be out of
Donatello's hearing. Still, however, they were beneath the pontiff's
outstretched hand; and Miriam, with her beauty and her sorrow, looked up
into his benignant face, as if she had come thither for his pardon and
paternal affection, and despaired of so vast a boon.
Meanwhile, she had not stood thus long in the public square of Perugia,
without attracting the observation of many eyes. With their quick sense
of beauty, these Italians had recognized her loveliness, and spared not
to take their fill of gazing at it; though their native gentleness and
courtesy made their homage far less obtrusive than that of Germans,
French, or Anglo-Saxons might have been. It is not improbable that
Miriam had planned this momentous interview, on so public a spot and at
high noon, with an eye to the sort of protection that would be thrown
over it by a multitude of eye-witnesses. In circumstances of profound
feeling and passion, there is often a sense that too great a seclusion
cannot be endured; there is an indefinite dread of being quite alone
with the object of our deepest interest. The species of solitude that
a crowd harbors within itself is felt to be preferable, in certain
conditions of the heart, to the remoteness of a desert or the depths
of an untrodden wood. Hatred, love, or whatever kind of too
intense emotion, or even indifference, where emotion has once been,
instinctively seeks to interpose some barrier between itself and the
corresponding passion in another breast. This, we suspect, was what
Miriam had thought of, in coming to the thronged piazza; partly this,
and partly, as she said, her superstition that the benign statue held
good influences in store.
But Donatello remained leaning against the balustrade. She dared not
glance towards him, to see whether he were pale and agitated, or calm as
ice. Only, she knew that the moments were fleetly lapsing away, and that
his heart must call her soon, or the voice would never reach her. She
turned quite away from him and spoke again to the sculptor.
"I have wished to meet you," said she, "for more than one reason. News
has come to me respecting a dear friend of ours. Nay, not of mine! I
dare not call her a friend of mine, though once the dearest."
"Do you speak of Hilda?" exclaimed Kenyon, with quick alarm. "Has
anything befallen her? When I last heard of her, she was still in Rome,
and well."
"Hilda remains in Rome," replied Miriam, "nor is she ill as regards
physical health, though much depressed in spirits. She lives quite alone
in her dove-cote; not a friend near her, not one in Rome, which, you
know, is deserted by all but its native inhabitants. I fear for her
health, if she continue long in such solitude, with despondency preying
on her mind. I tell you this, knowing the interest which the rare beauty
of her character has awakened in you."