“Ah, he is stubborn, I, perhaps, proud. Immensity is between me and Sir Charleroy.”
“Hast thou not yet had enough of pride’s dead sea apples?”
“Alas! why ask me?”
“If thou art ready for a better day, he may be.”
“Ready? I’ve always been. What I did for conscience sake and these children is done. What he did to me he only can undo, as far as the past can be undone.”
Then Miriamne waved her hand to her father, unseen by Rizpah, entreatingly, as if to say: “Come, but not too quickly, a little nearer.”
Sir Charleroy complied and not as a laggard, for Rizpah seemed changed from what she was in London. He now saw her as in those golden early days at Gerash. But the truth was, the change was chiefly in himself.
“Rizpah!”
“Sir Charleroy de Griffin!” replied the woman addressed deliberately, and apparently emotionlessly, as she fixed her eyes upon the knight. Then her eyes turned toward the tomb, seemingly inviting his to follow there their course. She stepped back and glanced from man to tomb, by the glance saying more plainly than words: