Harry remembered Chris as a schoolgirl, tall and stag-like, always running, her rebellious knees tossing up scant petticoats, her long hair rarely leaving more than one eye visible through its smother of tangled silk.  She was very brown then and very bony, and so ridiculously soft of heart that her tenderness was regarded by her schoolmates as an unfortunate infirmity.  She was tall still, taller than himself, with large limbs and a sort of manly squareness of the shoulders and erectness of the figure, but neatly gowned, with little feminine touches of flower and ribbon that belied the savour of unwomanliness in her size and her bearing.  Her complexion was clear and fair, her abundant hair the colour of new wheat, her features were large, the nose a trifle aquiline, the chin square and, finely chiselled; the feminine grace was due to her eyes, large, grey, and almost infantile in expression.  The people of Waddy called her handsome, and no more tender term would suit; but they knew that this fair girl-woman, who seemed created to dominate and might have been expected to carry things with a high hand everywhere, was in reality the simplest, gentlest, and most emotional of her sex.  She looked strong and was strong; her only weakness was of the heart, and that was a prey to the sorrows of every human being within whose influence she came in the rounds of her daily life.

Hardy was amazed; almost unconsciously he had pictured the grown-up Chris an angular creature, lean, like her father, and resembling him greatly; and to find this tall girl, with the face and figure of a battle queen, tearfully beseeching where in the natural course of events she should have been commanding haughtily and receiving humble obedience, filled him with a nervousness he had never known before.  Only pride kept him now.

‘Say you will go!  Say it!’

Harry lowered his head, and remained silent.

’Go now.  Your action would pain your mother more than my father’s words have done—­I am sure of that.’

The hymn was finished, but Shine read out the last verse once more.  His concern was now obvious, and the congregation was wrought to an unprecedented pitch.  Never had a hymn been so badly sung in that chapel.  It was taken up again without spirit, a few quavering voices carrying it on regardless of time and tune.  Chris had noted Harry’s indecision.

’Do not stay and shame yourself.  Go, and you will be glad you did not do this wicked thing.  You are going.  You will!  You will!

He had stooped and seized his hat.  He turned without a word or a glance, and strode from the chapel.  The congregation breathed a great sigh, and as he passed out the chorus swelled into an imposing burst of song—­a paean of triumph, Harry thought.

Through the chapel windows the congregation could see Harry Hardy striding away in the direction of the line of bush.

Christina, from her place amongst her girls, watched him till he disappeared in the quarries; and so did Ephraim Shine, but with very different feelings.  Many of the congregation were disappointed.  They had expected a sensational climax.  Class II was inconsolable, and made not the slightest effort to conceal its disgust, which lasted throughout the remainder of the morning and was a source of great tribulation to poor Brother Bowden.