It was a plausible evasion, but it did not efface from May’s mind the disdainful outburst and the black look that went with it. Both seemed so unnatural, even revolting, to a girl whose father stood with her as the synonym for nobility of manhood, that she could not get away from the recollection for the rest of the evening. This was before Mr. Wayt’s arrival, and sharpened May’s appreciation of the little by-play between Hester and her parent. His departure at nine o’clock was succeeded by Hester’s at ten, and, as was their habit, March and his sister took her home by the path across the orchard. The night was sultry; the moon lay languid under swathes of gray mist. She looked warm, and the stars near her faint and tired. Low down upon the horizon were flashes of purple sheet lightning. The town had kept the Fourth patriotically, and the odor of burned paper and gunpowder tainted the stirless air. “The grass is perfectly dry,” said May, stopping to lay her hand upon the mown sward. “That should be a sign of a shower.” “There is always rain on the night of the Fourth of July,” returned March abstractedly. Hester said not a word. As she looked up at the sick moon her eyes showed large and dark; her face was corpselike in the wan radiance. She was weary, and she had been indiscreet. She could not sleep without confessing to Hetty her lapse of temper and tongue, and Hetty had enough to bear already. She had not been so strong and bright as was her wont for a month past. It might be only excessive drudgery over sewing machine and household duties, but she looked fagged and sad at times. The phaëton and horse would benefit mamma and the children—when the vacant place beside the mistress of the Manse was not occupied by their lord and master. _He_ got the lion’s share of every luxury. Poor Hester’s conscience and heart were raw, and the heat of the wounds inflamed her imagination. The evening at the judge’s had not rested her. That was strange, or would have been had not the long, black shadow of her father lain across the memory of it. The back door of the parsonage stood wide open, and the house was so still that, as March stooped to lift Hester from her carriage at the foot of the steps, he caught the sound of what was scarcely louder than an intermittent sigh in the upper story, but continuous as a violent fit of weeping. The arm that lay over his shoulder twitched convulsively; Hester shuddered sharply, then laughed aloud: “Oh, Mr. Gilchrist! I thought I was falling! It is too bad to put you to all this trouble. I hope Tony hasn’t blown himself up. He ought to have come for me.” “Didn’t I promise your mother to bring you home safely?” said March reassuringly. And, as they reached the hall—“May I carry you upstairs?” The offer seemed to terrify her.