would come. He rose tremblingly, walked to the window, and saw the
stately deer grouped in the distance, saw the church spire that rose
above the burial vault of his ancestors, and his heart sank deeper and
deeper as he muttered: "Vain pride! pride!" Then he crept to the door
and locked it, and at last, seating himself firmly, as a wounded man to
some terrible operation, he read the letter.

Heaven support thee, old man! thou hast to pass through the bitterest
trial which honour and affection can undergo,--household treason. When
the wife lifts high the blushless front and brazens out her guilt; when
the child, with loud voice, throws off all control and makes boast of
disobedience,--man revolts at the audacity; his spirit arms against his
wrong: its face, at least, is bare; the blow, if sacrilegious, is direct.
But when mild words and soft kisses conceal the worst foe Fate can arm;
when amidst the confidence of the heart starts up the form of Perfidy;
when out from the reptile swells the fiend in its terror; when the breast
on which man leaned for comfort has taken counsel to deceive him; when he
learns that, day after day, the life entwined with his own has been a lie
and a stage-mime,--he feels not the softness of grief, nor the absorption
of rage; it is mightier than grief, and more withering than rage,--it is
a horror that appalls. The heart does not bleed, the tears do not flow,
as in woes to which humanity is commonly subjected; it is as if something
that violates the course of nature had taken place,--something monstrous
and out of all thought and forewarning; for the domestic traitor is a
being apart from the orbit of criminals: the felon has no fear of his
innocent children; with a price on his head, he lays it in safety on the
bosom of his wife. In his home, the ablest man, the most subtle and
suspecting, can be as much a dupe as the simplest. Were it not so as the
rule, and the exceptions most rare, this world were the riot of a hell!