But if a sorrow comes we cry aloud to let our neighbors know something untoward has befallen us; and if one we love has sinned, we feel as if the heavens themselves were darkened.
It was so with Phebe Marlowe.

All her earthly luminaries, the greater lights and the lesser lights, were under an eclipse, and a strange darkness had fallen upon her.

For the first time in her life she found herself brooding over the sin of one who had been her guide, her dearest friend, her hero.

From the time when as a child she had learned to look up to him as the paragon of all perfection, until now, as a girl on the verge of womanhood, she had offered up to him a very pure and maidenly worship.

There was no one else whom she could love as much; for her dumb and deaf father she loved in quite a different manner--with more of pity and compassion than of admiration.