This in truth to him was the greater affliction of the two, and he accordingly addressed himself with all his authority and influence over them, to the difficult task of plucking this frightful resolution out of their hearts.

In his attempt to execute this task, he found himself baffled and obstructed by other circumstances of a very distracting nature.
First, there were the rascally paragraphs alluding to his embarrassments on the one hand, and those which, while pretending to vindicate him and his partner from any risk of bankruptcy, levelled the assassin's blow at the reputation of his poor daughter, on the other.

Both told; but the first with an effect which no mere moral courage or consciousness of integrity, however high, could enable him to meet.

Creditors came in, alarmed very naturally at the reports against his solvency, and demanded settlement of their accounts from the firm.

These, in the first instances, were immediately made out and paid; but this would not do--other claimants came, equally pressing--one after another--and each so anxious in the early panic to secure himself, that ere long the instability which, in the beginning, had no existence, was gradually felt, and the firm of Harman and M'Loughlin felt themselves on the eve of actual bankruptcy.
These matters all pressed heavily and bitterly on both father and sons.
But we have yet omitted to mention that which, amidst all the lights in which the daughter contemplated the ruin of her fair fame, fell with most desolating consequences upon her heart--we mean her rejection by Harman, and the deliberate expression of his belief in her guilt.