atonement as a sign in answer to his
life-long penance.

Harry Jardine represented a different theory; he would be a dolt, a
brute, unpardonably vindictive, if he did not cherish all friendly
feelings to the Crawfurds; if he did not visit them openly and frankly.
He did visit at the Ewes, but he found the plainest opportunities ready
made for him during one fortnight at Hurlton, to come in contact with
Joanna Crawfurd. She had gone there to look after Conny, suborned by
Mrs. Maxwell, and laid up with a sore throat, and forlorn and wretched
if one of her sisters was not looking after her.

This intercourse could scarcely fail to have one grand climax. Joanna,
the thoughtful, imaginative, true, tender woman--a fair woman besides,
with that one little blot which singularly appealed to him with a harsh
sweet voice--a sufficiently rare woman, to stand quite distinct from her
sisters and companions in the light of the practical, active, ardent,
honest heart--became the one mistress in the world for Harry Jardine,
coveted and craved by him as the best gift of God, without which the
others were comparatively worthless, and for which he could have been
willing to sacrifice them one and all. Harry himself, in after years,
confessed that since the moment he awakened from that leaden drowsiness
on the moor, the image of Joanna Crawfurd, tending him as a mother her
sick child, was constantly before him.

Joanna had not precisely the same experience. From the moment that, with
the prescience of a woman where feelings are concerned, she saw the end,
she avoided Harry Jardine with all her power. Harry's generous
determination and daring, his fearlessness, confidence, and
steadfastness overpowered her.

Mr. Crawfurd was dreadfully upset by Harry Jardine's application to him,
his claim for forbearance, his entreaty for grace, and his candid
confession that his mother was violently opposed to his suit. It was a
case which could neither be considered nor rejected without remorse. Oh,
bitterness, which spread like an infection through so many years, and
into such different relations, and spoilt even the young man's
fairness, good faith, free forgiveness, and the purity and earnestness
of his passion, the pearl of his manhood, which, if lost to him, would
be a loss indeed! How Harry implored Mr. Crawfurd to spare it to him, to
reflect that it was the greatest benefit which he asked at his hands, to
pause before he denied it to him solel