d directly towards her.

"I have been introduced to your sisters, Miss Crawfurd, and you must
excuse further ceremony from me. Will you allow me to take you into
the next room and get a glass of wine or a biscuit for you? You should
not try fasting at an evening party. Mrs. Maxwell would call it a very
bad example."

He spoke fast, with a laugh, and crimsoned all over. She knew
perfectly well what he was about. He was determined to perform all
that could possibly be required of him. He would put down invidious
comments, disarm gossip, in short cut off the gorgon's head at the
first struggle. They might term it unnatural, overdone, but at least
it would not be to do again; and Harry Jardine's was the temper, that,
if you presented an obstacle to it, it itched the more to grapple with
the obstacle on the spot.

Precisely for the reason that she could not ride away from the party,
after Mrs. Maxwell assailed her with a motive for her conduct, Joanna
could not repel his overture. It was incredibly trying to her. He saw
how differently she was affected from her sisters. He was aware of
another influence. He felt very uncomfortable. Why, the very flesh of
his arm, which she touched lightly enough, crept, when the superstition
of the old ordeal of the bier flashed upon him, as he caught, with a
furtive glance, the tiny brand prickling and burning to fiery
incandescence above the waxen face. Was it a splash of his father's
blood impressed there, till the "solid flesh" would verily "melt"? Was
it his neighbourhood which brought out the ruddy spot, that, like the
scarlet streaks down Lady Macbeth's little hands, would not wash off?
Absurd folly! But he wished he had done with it. He wished old ladies
would confine themselves to their own concerns. He hoped fainting was
not heard of among the girls of the moors--that would be a talk! He
supposed he must say something commonplace and civil; he must task his
brains for that purpose. He coined a remark, and Joanna answered him
quietly and with simplicity. She must have possessed and exercised
great self-command. It struck Harry Jardine. It was a quality he valued
highly, possibly because he felt such difficulty in looking it up on his
own account. All through the few minutes' further conversation and
association between them, it impressed him, conjointly with the odd
recoiling sensations, which he had so rapidly shaken off, where her
sisters were concerned.

Harry had the faults