Rose Muir stood at the door as Cuthbert approached--he had chosen a later hour than usual for his visit, that he might not disturb them at their simple evening meal--but as he glanced at the downcast face of Rose, over which an uneasy colour was flushing, he saw that the old anxiety, the origin of which he had guessed at before, had now again returned. The long wistful glances she cast along the street--the eager expectant look with which she turned to himself--once before the herald of poor Harry--would have almost sufficed to reveal the secret of the family to Cuthbert had he not guessed it before. “Harry has not come home yet,” said Rose, with an unconscious apology in her tone; “they are sometimes kept very late at the office--but my sisters are up stairs, Mr. Charteris, will you come in?” Cuthbert followed her silently. He had become so much interested in the fortunes of the family, that he felt his own heart sink, as he remembered that “the office” had been closed a full hour ago. Agnes was alone when they entered the parlour, and Cuthbert, roused to observation, saw her sudden start as they opened the door, and the pallor and sickness of disappointment which came over her pretty youthful face, when her eye fell upon himself. The work she had been busy with, fell from the fingers which seemed for the moment too nervous to hold it. The little wife had been so confident--so sure of Harry’s reformation,--and her heart was throbbing now with a positive agony of mingled fear and hope. Cuthbert seated himself on the sofa, and began to talk of the baby--it was almost the only subject which could soothe the young mother--but even while he spoke, he could see how nervously awake they both were to every sound; how Rose suspended her work and held her breath at every footstep in the street below which seemed to approach the door--and how the needle stumbled in the small fingers of Agnes, and the unusual colour flickered on her cheek. “You are very late, Harry,” said Martha, entering from the inner room--Cuthbert’s back was towards her--she thought it was her brother. “It is Mr. Charteris, Martha,” said Rose. There was a fiery fight in Martha’s eyes--an impatience almost fierce in the evident pang, and short suppressed exclamation with which she discovered her mistake. She too had been strong in her renewed hope--had began to rest with a kind of confidence in the changed mind of Harry. But now the former chafing had commenced again, and the bitter hopelessness which once before overpowered her, returned upon her heart--Cuthbert thought of the old grand picture of the bound Prometheus--of the lurid background, and the cold tints of the captive figure, rigid in his manacled strength, with the vulture at his heart. Bitterest of dooms, to be bound to this misery, without one free hand to struggle against it.