Dick nodded but did not speak; he was staring with all his eyes, as was every man, woman, and child in the congregation.  Harry Hardy had not fulfilled expectations; he had been home five days, and had done nothing to avenge his brother.  He moved about amongst the men, but was reserved and grew every day more sullen.  He had heard much and had answered nothing; and now here he was at chapel and evidently bent on mischief, for the stockwhip was ominous.  Ephraim Shine had noticed it and retreated a step or two, and stood for quite a minute, turning his boot this way and that, but with his eyes on Harry all the time.  Now he cleared his throat, and called the number of the hymn.  He read the first verse and the chorus with his customary unction, and, all having risen, started the singing in a raspy, high-pitched voice.

Harry Hardy stood with the rest, a solitary figure in the centre of the chapel, still holding the long whip firmly grasped in his right hand.  Attention was riveted on him, and the singing of the hymn was a dismal failure.  The young man stared straight before him, seeing only one figure, that of Ephraim Shine, until he felt a light touch on his arm.  Someone was standing at his side, offering him the half of her hymn-book.  Harry raised his hand to the leaves mechanically, and noticed that the hand on the other side was white and shapely, the wrist softly rounded and blue-veined.  The voice that sounded by his side was low and musical.

‘Oh!  Harry, what are you going to do?’ His neighbour had ceased singing, and was whispering tremulously under cover of the voices of the congregation.

Harry’s face hardened, and he set it resolutely towards the platform.

’Don’t you know me, Harry?  I am Christina Shine.  You remember Chris?  We were school mates.’

His daughter!  The young man let his left hand fall to his side.

’Please don’t.  You have come to quarrel with father, but you won’t do it, Harry?  You saved my life once, when we were boy and girl.  You will promise me this?’

Harry Hardy answered nothing, and the pleading voice continued: 

’For the sake of the days when we were friends, Harry, say you won’t do it—­you won’t do it here, in—­in God’s house.’

‘It was here, in God’s house, he slandered my mother.’  The man’s voice sounded relentless.

‘No, no, not that!  He prayed for her.  He did not mean it ill.’

’I have heard of his praying—­how under the cover of his cant about saving souls he scatters his old-womanish scandals an’ abuses his betters.’

‘He means well.  Indeed, indeed, he means well.’

‘An’ he prays for my mother—­him!  Says she’s bred up thieves because she did not come here to learn better.  Says she’s an atheist because she does not believe in Ephraim Shine.  He’s said that, an’ I’m here to make him eat his words.’