The door opened and Miriam entered, pale and calm, in her white robes.
"I am come early, you see," she said in her low voice, so sweet and clear. "Well, what is the matter?" she added, looking at us both with sedate surprise.
"Look and see, Miriam! look and see!" replied Cornelius, with bitterness and emotion in his voice.
Miriam slowly came forward. She looked at the picture, then at me.
"Well," she said, "it is a pity certainly, a great pity, but it is only a picture after all."
"Only a picture!" echoed Cornelius.
"Yes," she answered, "only a picture. I will sit to you again and you will do better."
"Oh, Miriam, Miriam!" he exclaimed, a little passionately, "it is not merely the loss of the picture that troubles me."
"What then?" she inquired, looking up at him.
"You ask?" he said, returning her glance; "ay, Miriam, you do not know, no one knows what that child has been to me! I have watched at night by her sick bed, and felt, that if she died, something would be gone nothing could replace for me. Child as she was and is still, I have made her my companion and my friend; she, more than any other living creature, has known the thoughts, wishes, and aspirations that are within me. I have taught her, and found pleasure in the teaching. I have cared for her, cherished her for years, and only loved her the more that I was free not to love her. She has been dear to me as my own flesh and blood, or rather all the dearer because she was not mine; for whilst she was as sacred to me as if the closest ties of kindred bound us, I found a pleasure and a charm in the thought that she was a stranger. Even now, much as she has injured me, guilty as she is, I feel what a bitter struggle it will be for me to tear her from my heart."