I looked at Miriam, sick at heart. I saw my love slipping from my arms, and my whole life seemed to stretch before me wrecked and desolate. And Miriam looked at me as though she waited for me to speak.
“You’re very good,” I babbled feebly.
“And now, Miriam,” said Mrs. Wrigley briskly, “I’m sure I congratulate you with all my heart. Have you no thanks for Mr. and Mrs. Buckley?”
“Yes, dear,” said the latter lady, “come, sit by my side and let us hear from your own lips that you will come to us.”
But Miriam for a while made no sign, but just stood, swaying slightly as she stood, and torturing that ill-used handkerchief.
Then Mr. Buckley resumed: “I understand, Mr. Holmes, that you have just started on your own. And I well, I envy you. You have youth and strength, and, so Mrs. Wrigley assures me, an excellent character. Well, again don’t think I’m boasting, John Buckley is worth having for a friend. Though my line is cotton, and yours woollen, I make no doubt I can find you customers for every inch of cloth you can turn out, and when you want capital to launch out, why, I’m your man.”
“ ‘Thirty pieces of silver,’ ” I groaned, “ ‘thirty pieces of silver.’ ”
“Eh, what?” asked Mr. Buckley, on whom the allusion was clearly lost.
But Miriam understood. She came and stood by my side.
“I thank you kindly, sir,” she said, dropping a courtesy first to Mr. Buckley and then to his stately lady. “I thank you kindly, but I’m not for sale. I’ve made my choice, Mr. Buckley, and I stand by it. I know you mean well, and indeed, indeed, I’m grateful to you. But I want nothing better than the lot I’ve chosen. Take me to your fine home, clothe me in silks and satins, give me carriages and jewels, let my whole life be one round of pleasure, and what will it avail? My heart is no longer mine to give. Abel, here, stole it when I was a poor, wandering outcast, and it is his to keep till he cast it from him, and then I know ’twill break, ’twill break.”