She went with him to the door, gravely and calmly: when she had shut it upon him, she stood still, alone in the dark, to press her hands against her heart. Again--again!--so long she had hoped that this facile temper would be steadied, that this poor brilliant wandering star would be fixed in his proper orbit. So often, so drearily, as her hopes had sunk into that blank of pain. Poor Harry! it was all they could say of him. When others praised the gay wit, the happy temper, the quick intelligence, those to whom he was dearest, could only say, poor Harry! for the good and pleasant gifts he had, made the bitterness of their grief only the deeper. Their pride in him aggravated their shame. Darkest and saddest of all domestic calamities these women, to whom he was so very dear, could not _trust_ the man in whom all their hopes and wishes centred. He had not lost their affection--_it_ seemed only the more surely to yearn over and cling to him, for his faults--but he had lost their confidence. They could not believe him: they could not rely upon word or resolution of his. When Harry was an hour later than his usual time of home-coming, Martha grew rigid in her chair, her strong heart beating so loud that almost she could not hear those footsteps in the street for which she watched with silent eagerness; and the work fell from the hands of the young wife, and Rose stole away, pale and agitated, into the inner room, to watch at the window in the darkness; and even the little sister--the child--was moved with the indefinite dread and melancholy which is the grief of childhood. There were many grave people who would have smiled at poor Harry’s sins, and counted them light and venial, but so did not these. To lose confidence in those who are most dear to us, to be able no longer to trust word or vow--it is the climax of womanish misery,--a calamity terrible to bear! And Martha Muir, under this discipline, was growing old. Morning after morning there had been a rebound of eager hope, only to be utterly cast down when the night fell. She had had something of the mother’s pride in him--had transferred to Harry the natural ambition, the eager hopes and wishes, which for herself had all faded with her fading prime--and now, she who had so strong a will, so resolute a mind, to see this man with all his gifts, and the free scope he had to exercise them, sinking, falling, tarnishing with mean sins, the lustre and glory of his youth. Poor Harry! his stern sad sister said nothing more of blame--but as she turned again along the damp passage, and up the stairs, the heart within her sank into the depths. She pressed her hands upon it. Strange sympathy between the frame and the spirit, which makes it no image to say that there is a weight upon the heart!