He bent his head over hers for a moment, listening to her broken words, then, with a courteous explanation to the stranger, he hurried down the courtyard and turned into that in which his mother’s room was located. Miriam started to follow, her mind intent upon this new grief, but a hand touched her on the shoulder and she looked into the brown, questioning face of her brother.
The warmth of her welcome left him no room for jealousy of Isaac. Both faces beamed as genially as the sun, which had finally succeeded in dispersing the clouds and drying up the rain drops. She guided her visitor to the spot that she and Isaac liked, the seat under the damson tree near the fountain. He gazed in wonder at his surroundings, at the richness and beauty everywhere, marveling that she seemed so much at ease amid all this magnificence. It was so different from what he had expected to find, nor could he understand the greeting he had just witnessed between herself and Isaac.
“Art thou not afraid of the man who took thee captive?” he asked.
Radiant with the happiness of her brother’s coming and clinging to him as if he were a pleasant dream which might be lost, she answered quite serenely: “Afraid of Isaac? Nay, thou canst not fear one who loveth someone thou dost love.”
He thought she referred to Rachel and it was like the thrust of a knife.
“Ever conscious is he, Benjamin, of the debt he oweth thee. He hath told me.”
The shepherd was bitterly incredulous.
“Before thou seest Rachel,” she went on, “I must tell thee something she knoweth not I have learned.”
A stern look crept into Benjamin’s face.
“Rachel liketh Isaac very much indeed—”