“But, mother—”
“No evasion nor compromise!”
“I can not treat the kind old man that way. He is so good, and all the people, Jews and Gentiles, love him,” pleaded Miriamne.
“Enough! and, in brief, meet him or speak to him again, and I’ll disown thee! I’d drive thee, daughter of mine though thou art, out of my home to starvation and pray God to send all the plagues written in His book to haunt thee, while thy life remained, rather than tolerate heresy!”
So saying, Rizpah fell upon her knees, as if even then to utter an imprecation.
In terror the daughter ran to her, and shielding her eyes from the parent’s anger-distorted countenance, she pitifully cried:
“Mother! Oh, mother! Don’t curse me! Save me! save me!”
The elder woman’s body swayed and dilated as if she were possessed of some furious demon, checked and muzzled, but struggling to break forth. Evidently the pathos of the daughter’s appeal touched some responding chord of mercy, for the mother restrained herself and then suddenly arose and swept out of the bed-chamber. And yet Miriamne was not reassured; she felt the fascination of dread. With trembling her eyes were riveted on the open door; her ears heard the heavy, stately, threatening, departing footsteps, and great misery overwhelmed her. She felt, if she could not express it, that the breakers of a mighty wrath were heaving and tossing in that bosom on which she had hitherto rested when in pain or peril. She knew the meanings of those wavy motions, so like those of the boa retiring for renewed attack. She saw them passing up and down the form of Rizpah as the latter went out, her eyes burning, her body dilating. She had observed these things in her parent before, but never as now directed toward herself.
In terror and anguish Miriamne fled out of the old Giant-house. There was relief and a sense of getting more truly under the sheltering wings of God in getting out under the serene canopy of heaven. So, often, the grief-stricken seek solitude, absence from all that has crossed and hurt, separation from all earthly, in a lonely appeal to the Holy and Loving. And so these two women, bound to each other by the strongest human ties, needing, because of their isolation, each other supremely; after all, loving each other with a choice, tried love, willing each to endure any cross, even unto death, for the other’s weal, and both anxious to serve God loyally, went apart. They exemplified the cross-purposes and misunderstandings that beset and mar life’s pilgrims. They needed sorely, both of them, pilot and beacon; some one to inspire as well as to exemplify all that is best in womanhood. The need was patent, but the remedy but dimly discerned.