With anxious questions and practical sympathy the girl knelt beside her cousin, slipping off the sandal and examining the rapidly swelling ankle. “Straight to my mother’s house,” she suggested. “It is so near,” but Abner objected.
“To her own home,” he commanded, sharply, preparing to resume his load.
Judith’s eyes flew open. “Nay,” she protested feebly. “Thou shouldst know that truth is not my companion nor hath ever been. I stole the pearl. It is that for which Caleb, brother to my father, was slain, and which Sarah, who hath been a mother to me, cast away in her despair. I found it and used it to serve my own ends. Then, when it had long been a coal of fire in my bosom I gave it to Eli to help with the little maid’s ransom. Yet sin reapeth sorrow as surely as harvest followeth the time of sowing. Because of the pearl my husband hath divorced me, and lest my disgrace be known to those to whom it would bring grief, I determined to use the jewel to purchase my way to Damascus with the soldiers.”
Miriam’s amazed look encountered Eli’s stern one. “I knew not,” he began, but Miriam was stroking Judith’s forehead and speaking tenderly. “Always hast thou been unhappy in Hannathon, for wast not thy sadness mine? Yea, but come thou. Behold, our home is thine also.”
“Nay,” said Abner with decision, “we take thee to thine own house, thine and mine. As for the pearl, I knew not it belonged to Sarah. I hated it for the trouble it hath caused thee and me and just now I flung it into the gorge.”
Eli gasped. “But thou wilt pay,” he insisted. “Its value shalt thou redeem, that the widow and the orphan be not robbed.”
Miriam was quite as decided. “Nay, it hath ever been an evil thing, and with the gift sent by Naaman my master, my mother will not miss the pearl. Rather would she wish it counted dead now that it hath been buried. Her anxiety will be for Judith. Take her to our house, I pray thee.”
But he would not and the little procession resumed its slow march to his abode.
An hour later Miriam remembered the abandoned water jar, and bidding her cousin an affectionate farewell, hastened to reclaim her forgotten property. The sun had finally conquered the fog and sweet-scented breezes played with her hair, but the sight of Eli, dolorously gazing into the distance, hushed the song in her heart.
He broke the news without preamble. “Nathan hath returned to Damascus with the soldiers.”