Maria, too, was unhappy. Her last visit to Agnes had been such a mockery of their once loving companionship. Her last visit! That word "last" took hold of her, reproached her, hurt her, made her sorry and anxious. She felt also for her uncle, who looked old and gray in his silent sorrow. Poor Neil! he had suffered so many losses lately; loss of money, loss of business, loss of friends, and to crown all these bereavements, the loss of the woman on whom he had fixed the love and light and hopes of his life. No wonder he was so mournful and so quiet; he, who had just begun to be really happy, to smile and be gracious and pleasant to every one, yes, and even to sing! Madame could not help noticing the change. "He is worse than ever he was before," she said with a weary pity. "Dear me! what lots of sorrow women do manage to make!" This remark Maria did not approve of, and she answered it with some temper. "All this sorrow came from a man's hand, grandmother," she said, "and no woman is to blame." "Not even yoursel', Maria?" "I, least of all. Do you think that I would have met any man by the river side at nine o'clock at night?" "I'll confess I have had my doubts." "Then you ought to say, 'Maria, I am sorry I have had one doubt of you.' When you were Janet Gordon, would you have done a thing like that?" "Not a man in Scotland could have trysted me at an hour when all my folk were in their rooms and maybe sleeping." "Not a man in America could make such a tryst with me. I am your granddaughter." "But that letter, Maria." "It was a shame! A wrong I cannot forgive. I called it an impertinence to Agnes, and I feel it so. He had no reason to suppose I would answer such a request, such an order, I may say. I am telling you the truth, grandmother." "I believe you, Maria; but the pity of it is that you canna advertise that fact." "I know that. I know that everyone will doubt me or shun me. I shall be made to suffer, of course. Well, I can suffer and smile as well as any woman,--we all have that experience at some time or other." "Men have it, too. Look at your uncle." "Men don't smile when they suffer; they don't even try to. Uncle suffers, any one can see that, but he does not dress up in velvet and silk, and laugh, and dance, and talk nonsense merrily over the grave where all his hopes are buried. No, indeed! He looks as if he had lost the world. And he shuts himself in his room and swears at something or somebody; he does not cry like a woman and get a headache, as well as a heartache; he swears at his trouble and at everything connected with it. That is the way with men, grandmother, you know it is. I have heard both my grandfather and my uncle comforting themselves after this fashion. Grandfather, I thought, even seemed to enjoy it."