"She has never been down stairs. She does not know he was here."
"Then we will not tell her. What is the use?"
"None at all. Father and mother have their own trouble. They are very anxious and almost broken-hearted at the indignity put upon our family. I heard my father crying as I passed his door and mother trying to comfort him, but crying, too. It made my heart stand still."
"It is my fault! It is my fault! Oh! what a wicked, miserable girl I am! What can I do? What can I do?"
"Try and sleep, and get a little strength for tomorrow. Within the next twenty-four hours Harry Bradley will be saved or dead."
"I think he is saved. I am sure of it."
"Then try and sleep; will you try, Maria?"
"Yes."
She said the word with a hopeless indifference, half nullifying the promise. Then, lighting her candle, she went slowly to her room. Oh, but the joy that is dead weighs heavy! Maria could hardly trail her body upstairs. Her life felt haggard and thin, as if it was in its eleventh hour; and she was too physically exhausted to stretch out her hand into the dark and find the clasp of that Unseen Hand always waiting the hour of need, strong to uphold, and ready to comfort. No, she could not pray; she had lost Harry: there was nothing else she desired. In her room there was a picture of the crucifixion, and she cast her eyes up to the Christ hanging there, forsaken in the dark, and wondered if He pitied her, but the pang of unpermitted prayer made her dumb in her lonely grief.
Alas, God Christ! along the weary lands,
What lone, invisible Calvaries are set!
What drooping brows with dews of anguish wet,
What faint outspreading of unwilling hands
Bound to a viewless cross, with viewless bands.