"Too much!" replied the warrior, grinding his teeth with rage. "Hate
dims your clear intellect. If the bird-catcher really--what was your
comparison--if the bird-catcher really made me his whistler, deceived
and misled me, he might learn from you, ay, from you! Encouraged by you,
I relied upon your love and faith. From you I hoped all things--and
where is this love? As you spared me nothing that could cause me pain,
I will, pitiless to myself, confess the whole truth to you. It was not
alone because the God of my fathers called me, but because His summons
reached me through you and my father that I came. You yearn for a land
in the far uncertain distance, which the Lord has promised you; but I
opened to the people the door of a new and sure home. Not for their
sakes--what hitherto have they been to me?--but first of all to live
there in happiness with you whom I loved, and my old father. Yet you,
whose cold heart knows naught of love, with my kiss still on your lips,
disdain what I offer, from hatred of the hand to which I owe it. Your
life, your conflicts have made you masculine. What other women would
trample the highest blessings under foot?"

Miriam could bear no more and, sobbing aloud, covered her convulsed face
with her hands.

At the grey light of dawn the sleepers in the camp began to stir, and men
and maid servants came out of the dwellings of Amminadab and Naashon.
All whom the morning had roused were moving toward the wells and watering
places, but she did not see them.

How her heart had expanded and rejoiced when her lover exclaimed that he
had come to lead them to the land which the Lord had promised to his
people. Gladly had she rested on his breast to enjoy one brief moment of