At that moment Miriam joined them, taking a chair between her grandmother and brother. Her face was very pale, and she had evidently been weeping a good deal.
Ronald noted it with surprise and concern. “My dear sister,” he said, kindly, “don’t distress yourself about this dreadful occurrence. Why should you? Bangs was no friend to you.”
“No; but—it is almost more dreadful to me because he was—an enemy, and—Oh, you do not know that it was I who angered him so that he shot poor Barney down! Oh, poor, poor Nora! What will she ever do?” she added, with a bitter sob; “and I—I feel as if I had killed them both.”
“Oh, Miriam, you are too sensible a girl to think anything of the kind!” exclaimed Ronald. “You did not give Bangs his dreadful temper, or put Barney in his way; nor were you the cause of the enmity between them.”
“Oh, you don’t know all!” cried Miriam; “I have been keeping some things from you and grandmother, because—because I didn’t want to distress you; but now I’ll tell you all!”
Then she went on to give a full account of Bangs’s efforts to induce her to consent to become his wife, including his threats, founded on the fact that he had got the mortgage on Lakeside into his possession, and all that had passed between them at that day’s interview; also the fury of passion he was in when he left her.
She told also of her cry to God for deliverance out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man, and how, because of that, she felt almost that she had helped to bring him to his fearful end.
“Mirry, my child,” her grandmother said, with emotion, and laying a hand affectionately upon the young girl’s arm, “do not be distressed with any such feeling; you have no reason to blame yourself; you but obeyed the command, ‘Call upon Me in the day of trouble;’ which was right, wise, and your duty, and God took His own way to answer your prayer.
“If Mr. Bangs had been a diligent Bible student he might have known he had great reason to fear some such fate, if he persisted in so oppressing the widow and orphans; because in the Book of Exodus we read, ‘Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto Me, I will surely hear their cry; and My wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword.’”
There was a moment of silence, then Ronald said, “What a fearful threat! And it seems to have been very speedily fulfilled in Bangs’s case; though it may be that other helpless ones have been crying to God for relief from his oppressions for years. I have heard it asserted that much of his wealth was obtained by fraud and oppression of the weak and helpless; but in any event, Mirry, I am sure you need not feel that any blame attaches to you; it is a morbid feeling that I trust will soon pass away.”