thought that it was her own fault that no like happiness could bloom
for her in this hour.

She told herself that she had made a sore sacrifice, worthy of the
highest reward and pleasing in the sight of God, when she refused to obey
the voice of her heart, yet she could not banish from her memory the
dying Egyptian who had denied her right to be numbered among those who
loved Hosea, the woman who for his sake had met so early a death.

She, Miriam, lived, yet she had killed the most fervent desire of her
soul; duty forbade her thinking with ardent longing of him who lingered
up yonder, devoted to the cause of his people and the God of his fathers,
a free, noble man, perhaps the future leader of the warriors of her race,
and if Moses so appointed, next to him the first and greatest of all the
Hebrews, but lost, forever lost to her.

Had she on that fateful night obeyed the yearning of her woman's heart
and not the demands of the vocation which placed her far above all other
women, he would long since have clasped her in his arms, as quiet Reuben
embraced his poor, feeble Milcah, now so joyous as she walked stoutly at
his side.

What thoughts were these?

She must drive them back to 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