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.
Their conversation drifted to dangerous ground.
'Have you found nothing to help poor Frank?' she asked.
'Nothing,' he said sharply and suspiciously.
'I am sorry. Oh! how I wish I could aid you!'
'There's one man that might do that, but he won't.'
'One man? One? You said that strangely. One man? Who would be so brutal?'
His silence stung her. She turned sharply.
'Oh, you don't mean—surely, surely you don't mean father?'