"
With anguish bordering on insanity, she threw herself into his arms for
a moment--was pressed to his heart, and then breaking away, she escaped
from the room to her own chamber. And there, with her half-crazed brain
and breaking heart--like one acting or forced to act in a ghastly dream,
she began to arrange her evidence--collect the letters, the list of
witnesses and all, preparatory to setting forth upon her fatal mission
in the morning.
With the earliest dawn of morning, Miriam left her room. In passing the
door of Mr. Willcoxen's chamber, she suddenly stopped--a spasm seized
her heart, and convulsed her features--she clasped her hands to pray,
then, as if there were wild mockery in the thought, flung them fiercely
apart, and hurried on her way. She felt that she was leaving the house
never to return; she thought that she should depart without encountering
any of its inmates. She was surprised, therefore, to meet Paul in the
front passage. He came up and intercepted her:
"Where are you going so early, Miriam?"
"To Colonel Thornton's."
"What? Before breakfast?"
"Yes."
He took both of her hands, and looked into her face--her pallid
face--with all the color concentrated in a dark crimson spot upon either
cheek--with all the life burning deep down in the contracted pupils of
the eyes.
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