The widow sank upon the edge of the bed and mopped her tears with a snow-white apron.

‘That means that I sha’n’t see him for two days at least,’ she said, ’unless I’m either taken very ill or attacked by a burglar.  Why, why can’t a poor woman be allowed to bring up her own children in her own way?’

Chris was soothing and Harry reassuring.

‘He knows how to take care of himself.  He’ll be all right,’ cried the young man heartily.

‘If you could get some o’ the boys to let him know I wasn’t safe from a sundowner, or a drunken drover, or someone, I’d be much obliged,’ said Mrs. Haddon.

‘Very well,’ replied Harry, laughing.  ‘I’ll manage that.’

Mrs. Haddon smiled through her tears, much comforted, and turned her mind to other things.  Within the space of about two minutes she had satisfied herself that no woman in all the world would make Harry Hardy a better wife than Christina Shine, and, being convinced, it was manifestly her duty to help the good cause.

‘Won’t you stay awhile an’ keep me company, Christina?’ she asked.  ‘Harry’ll see you home.’

Miss Chris would stay with pleasure, but she couldn’t think of troubling Mr. Hardy, and she said so with a girl’s shyness.  Mr. Hardy stammered a little and tried to say that it would be no trouble at all, but the effort was not a brilliant success considered as a compliment.  He longed to stay, and yet hated and feared to stay.  This anomalous frame of mind was new; it confused and staggered him.  He seemed to be swayed by an external impulse, and resented it with miserable self-deceit.  But he stayed.

Harry did not greatly enrich the conversation during the hour spent in Mrs. Haddon’s kitchen, but he found his eyes drawn to the handsome profile of Christina Shine, standing out in its soft fairness against the dark wall like a wonderfully carven cameo.  Her hair, turned back in beautifully flowing lines, helped the queenly suggestion.  Harry looked resolutely away; then he heard her voice, sweet and low, and recollected that beside himself no man, woman, or child in Waddy was mean enough to cherish a hard thought of Miss Chris. Beside himself?  He turned fiercely, as if for refuge, to his dislike for her father.  His failure to find the smallest clue to justify his opinion and that of his mother as to the real merits of the crime at the Silver Stream left him more bitter towards the searcher, the one man whose words and actions had convicted Frank.  He would not admit his hatred to be unfair or unreasonable, and his moroseness deepened as time showed him how heavily the disgrace and sorrow lay upon his mother, although her words were always cheerful and her faith unconquerable.

The walk home that night was not a pleasant one to Chris. She was piteously anxious to have him think kindly of her, and this made itself felt through Harry’s roughest mood; then he had an absurd impulse to throw out his arms and offer her protection and tenderness.  Absurd because, turning towards her, he was compelled to look upwards into her eyes, and the tall, strong figure at his side, walking erect, with firm square shoulders, dwarfed his conceit till he felt himself morally and physically a pigmy.