noon
Still , however , they were beneath the pontiff 's outstretched hand ; and Miriam , with her beauty and her sorrow , looked up into his benignant face , as if she had come thither for his pardon and paternal affection , and despaired of so vast a boon . Meanwhile , she had not stood thus long in the public square of Perugia , without attracting the observation of many eyes . With their quick sense of beauty , these Italians had recognized her loveliness , and spared not to take their fill of gazing at it ; though their native gentleness and courtesy made their homage far less obtrusive than that of Germans , French , or Anglo-Saxons might have been . It is not improbable that Miriam had planned this momentous interview , on so public a spot and at high noon , with an eye to the sort of protection that would be thrown over it by a multitude of eye-witnesses . In circumstances of profound feeling and passion , there is often a sense that too great a seclusion can not be endured ; there is an indefinite dread of being quite alone with the object of our deepest interest . The species of solitude that a crowd harbors within itself is felt to be preferable , in certain conditions of the heart , to the remoteness of a desert or the depths of an untrodden wood . Hatred , love , or whatever kind of too intense emotion , or even indifference , where emotion has once been , instinctively seeks to interpose some barrier between itself and the corresponding passion in another breast .