Haworth's

"I believe so," he answered.

She sat for a moment, rubbing her hand slowly as before, and then she spoke.

"So much the worse," she said,—"so much the worse for me."

She went up to her room when she left him. It was a little room in the second story, and she had become fond of it. She often sat alone there. She had been sitting at its window when Rachel Ffrench had driven by in the afternoon. The window was still open she saw as she entered, and a gust of wind passing through it had scattered several light articles about the floor. She went to pick them up. They were principally loose papers, and as she bent to raise the first one she discovered that it was yellow with age and covered with a rough drawing of some mechanical appliance. Another and another presented the same plan—drawn again and again, elaborately and with great pains at times, and then hastily as if some new thought had suggested itself. On several were written dates, and on others a few words.

She was endeavoring to decipher some of these faintly written words when a fresh gust of rising wind rushed past her as she stood, and immediately there fell upon her ear a slight ghostly rustle. Near her was a small unused closet whose door had been thrown open, and as she turned toward it there fluttered from one of the shelves a sheet of paper yellower than the rest. She picked it up and read the words written upon the back of the drawing. They had been written twenty-six years before.

"To-day the child was born. It is a boy. By the time he is a year old my work will be done."

The girl's heart began to beat quickly. The papers rustled again, and a kind of fear took possession of her.

"He wrote it," she said aloud. "The man who is dead—who is dead; and it was not finished at all."

She closed the window, eager to shut out the wind; then she closed the door and went back to the papers. Her fancies concerning Stephen Murdoch had taken very definite shape from the first. She knew two things of him; that he had been gentle and unworldly, and that he had cherished throughout his life a hope which had eluded him until death had come between him and his patient and unflagging labor.

The sight of the yellow faded papers moved her to powerful feeling. She had never had a friend; she had stood alone from her earliest childhood, and here was a creature who had been desolate too—who must have been desolate, since he had been impelled to write the simple outcome of his thoughts again and again upon the paper he wrought on, as if no human being had been near to hear. It was this which touched her most of all. There was scarcely a sheet upon which some few words were not written. Each new plan bore its date, and some hopeful or weary thought. He had been tired often, but never faithless to his belief. The end was never very far off. A few days, one more touch, would bring it,—and then he had forgotten all the past.

"I can afford to forget it," he said once. "It only seems strange now that it should have lasted so long when so few steps remain to be taken."

These words had been written on his leaving America. He was ready for his departure. They were the last record. When she had read them, Christian pushed the papers away and sat gazing into space with dilated eyes.

"He died," she said. "He is dead. Nothing can bring him back; and it is forgotten."

CHAPTER XII. GRANNY DIXON.

The next time Janey brought her father's dinner to the Yard she sought out Murdoch in a dejected mood. She found him reading over his lunch in the sunshine, and she sat down opposite to him, folding her arms on her lap.

"We're i' trouble again at our house," she said. "We're allus i' trouble. If it is na one thing, it's another."

Murdoch shut his book and leaned back upon his pile of lumber to listen. He always listened.

"What is it this time?"

"This toime?" querulously. "This is th' worst o' th' lot. Granny Dixon's come back."

"Granny Dixon?"

Janey shook her head.

"Tha knows nowt about her," she said. "I nivver towd thee nowt. She's my feyther's grandmother an' she's ower ninety years owd, an' she's getten money. If it wur na fur that no one ud stond her, but"—with a sigh—"foak conna turn away brass."

Having relieved herself of this sentiment she plunged into the subject with fresh asperity.

"Theer's no knowin' how to tak' her," she said. "Yo' mun shout at th' top o' yore voice to mak' her hear. An' she wunnot let nowt go by. She mun hear aw as is goin'. She's out wi' Mester Hixon at th' chapel because she says she conna hear him an' he does it a-purpose. When she wur out wi' ivverybody else she used to say she wur goin' to leave her brass to him, an' she invited him to tea ivvery neet fur a week, an' had him set by her chair an' talk. It wur summer toime an' I've seed him set an' shout wi' th' sweat a-pourin' down his face an' his neck-tie aw o' one soide, an' at th' eend o' a week he had a quinsy, as wur nigh bein' th' eend o' him. An' she nivver forgive him. She said as he wur an impident chap as thowt hissen too good fur his betters."

Murdoch expressed his sympathy promptly.

"I wish tha'd coom up an' talk to her some day thysen," said Janey. "It ud rest us a bit," candidly. "Yo'n getten th' kind o' voice to mak' folk hear, though yo' dunnot speak so loud, an' if yo' get close up to her ear an' say things slow, yo'd get used to it i' toime."

"I'll come some day," answered Murdoch, speculating with some doubt as to the possible result of the visit.

Her mind relieved, Janey rose to take her departure. Suddenly, however, a new idea presented itself to her active mind.

"Has tha seen Miss Ffrench yet?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered.

"What does tha think on her?"

He picked up his book and re-opened it.

"I only saw her for an instant," he said. "I hadn't time to think anything."

On his way from his work a few days later, he stopped at the Briarley cottage. It was swept and garnished; there were no traces of the children about. Before he reached the house, there had been borne to him the sound of a voice reading at its highest and shrillest pitch, and he had recognized it as Janey's.

As he entered, that young person rose panting from her seat, in her eagerness almost dropping the graphically illustrated paper she held in her hand.

"Eh!" she exclaimed. "I am glad to see thee! I could na ha' stood it mich longer. She would ha' me read the 'To-be-continyerd' one, an' I've bin at it nigh an hour."

Granny Dixon turned on her sharply.

"What art tha stoppin' fur?" she demanded. "What's th' matter wi' thee?"

Murdoch gave a slight start. The sound was so tremendous that it seemed almost impossible that it should proceed from the small and shriveled figure in the armchair.

"What art tha stoppin' fur?" she repeated. "Get on wi' thee."

Janey drew near and spoke in her ear.

"It's Mester Murdoch," she proclaimed; "him as I towd yo' on."

The little bent figure turned slowly and Murdoch felt himself transfixed by the gaze of a pair of large keen eyes. They had been handsome eyes half a century before, and the wrinkled and seamed face had had its comeliness too.

"Tha said he wur a workin' mon," she cried, after a pause. "What did tha tell me that theer fur?"

"He is a workin' mon," said Janey. "He's getten his work-cloas on now. Does na tha see 'em?"

"Cloas!" announced the Voice again. "Cloas i'deed! A mon is na made out o' cloas. I've seed workin' men afore i' my day, an' I know 'em."

Then she extended her hand, crooking the forefinger like a claw, in a beckoning gesture.

"Coom tha here," she commanded, "an set thysen down to talk to me."

She gave the order in the manner of a female potentate, and Murdoch obeyed her with a sense of overpowering fascination.

"Wheer art tha fro'?" she demanded.

He made his reply, "From America," as distinct as possible, and was relieved to find that it reached her at once.

"'Merica?" she repeated. "I've heerd o' 'Merica often enow. That's wheer th' blacks live, an' th' Indians. I knowed a young chap as went theer, an' th' Indians scalped him. He went theer because I would na ha' him. It wur when I wur a lass."

She paused a moment and then said the last words over again, nodding her head with a touch of grim satisfaction.

"He went theer because I would na ha' him. It wur when I wur a lass."

He was watching her so intently that he was quite startled a second time when she turned her eyes upon him and spoke again, still nodding.

"I wur a han'some lass," she said. "I wur a han'some lass—seventy year' ago."

It was quite plain that she had been. The thing which was least pleasant about her now was a certain dead and withered suggestion of a beauty of a not altogether sinless order.

The recollection of the fact seemed to enliven her so far that she was inspired to conducting the greater part of the conversation herself. Her voice grew louder and louder, a dull red began to show itself on her cheeks, and her eyes sparkled. She had been "a han'some lass, seventy year' ago, an' had had her day—as theer wur dead folk could tell."

"She'll go on i' that rood aw neet, if summat dunnot tak' her off it," said Janey. "She loikes to talk about that theer better than owt else."

But something did happen "to tak' her off it."

"Tha'st getten some reason i' thee," she announced. "Tha does na oppen tha mouth as if tha wanted to swally folk when tha says what tha'st getten to say. Theer's no workin' men's ways about thee—cloas or no cloas."

"That's th' way she goes on," said Janey. "She canna bide folk to look soft when they're shoutin' to her. That was one o' th' things she had agen Mester Hixon. She said he getten so red i' th' face it put her out o' patience."

"I loike a mon as is na a foo'," proclaimed Granny Dixon. But there her voice changed and grew sharp and tremulous. "Wheer's that flower?" she cried. "Who's getten it?"

Janey turned toward the door and uttered a shrill little cry of excitement.

"It's Miss Ffrench," she said. "She's—she's stondin' at th' door."

It would have been impossible to judge from her expression how long she had been there. She stood upon the threshold with a faint smile on her lips, and spoke to Janey.

"I want to see your mother," she said.

"I'll—I'll go and tell her," the child faltered. "Will yo' coom in?"

She hesitated a second and then came in. Murdoch had arisen. She did not seem to see him as she passed before him to reach the chair in which she sat down. In fact she expressed scarcely a shadow of recognition of her surroundings. But upon Granny Dixon had fallen a sudden feverish tremor.

"Who did she say yo' wur?" she cried. "I did na hear her."

The visitor turned and confronted her.

"I am Rachel Ffrench," she answered in a clear, high voice.

The dull red deepened upon the old woman's cheeks, and her eyes gained new fire.

"Yo're a good un to mak' a body hear," she said. "An' I know yo'."

Miss Ffrench made no reply. She smiled incredulously at the fire.

The old woman moved restlessly.

"Ay, but I do," she cried. "I know yo'. Yo're Ffrench fro' head to foot. Wheer did yo' get that?"

She was pointing to a flower at Miss Ffrench's throat—a white, strongly fragrant, hot-house flower. Miss Ffrench cast a downward glance at it.

"There are plenty to be had," she said. "I got it from home."

"I've seen 'em before," said Granny Dixon. "He used to wear 'em i' his button-hole."

Miss Ffrench made no reply and she went on, her tones increasing in volume with her excitement.

"I'm talkin' o' Will Ffrench," she said. "He wur thy gran'feyther. He wur dead afore yo' wur born."

Miss Ffrench seemed scarcely interested, but Granny Dixon had not finished.

"He wur a bad un!" she cried. "He wur a devil! He wur a devil out an' out. I knowed him an' he knowed me."

Then she bent forward and touched Miss Ffrench's arm.

"Theer wur na a worse un nor a bigger devil nowheer," she said. "An' yo're th' very moral on him."

Murdoch turned to the place she pointed out. The white flower lay upon the flagged floor. He picked it up and handed it to her with a vague recognition of the powerfulness of its fragrance. She took it and sat mumbling over it.

"It's th' very same," she muttered. "He used to wear 'em i' his button-hole when he coom. An' she's th' very moral on him."

CHAPTER XIII. MR. FFRENCH VISITS THE WORKS.

There were few men in Broxton or the country surrounding it who were better known than Gerard Ffrench. In the first place, he belonged, as it were, to Broxton, and his family for several generations back had belonged to it. His great-grandfather had come to the place a rich man and had built a huge house outside the village, and as the village had become a town the Ffrenchs had held their heads high. They had confined themselves to Broxton until Gerard Ffrench took his place. They had spent their lives there and their money. Those who lived to remember the youth and manhood of the present Ffrench's father had, like Granny Dixon, their stories to tell. His son, however, was a man of a different mold. There were no evil stories of him. He was a well-bred and agreeable person and lived a refined life. But he was a man with tastes which scarcely belonged to his degree.

"I ought to have been born in the lower classes and have had my way to make," he had been heard to say.

Unfortunately, however, he had been born a gentleman of leisure and educated as one. But this did not prevent him from indulging in his proclivities. He had made more than one wild business venture which had electrified his neighbors. Once he had been on the verge of a great success and again he had overstepped the verge of a great loss. He had lost money, but he had never lost confidence in his business ability.

"I have gained experience," he said. "I shall know better next time."

His wife had died early and his daughter had spent her girlhood with a relative abroad. She had developed into beauty so faultless that it had been said that its order belonged rather to the world of pedestals and catalogues than to ordinary young womanhood.

But the truth was that she was not an ordinary young woman at all.

"I suppose," she said at dinner on the evening of her visit to the Briarley cottage,—"I suppose these work-people are very radical in their views."

"Why?" asked her father.

"I went into a cottage this afternoon and found a young workman there in his working clothes, and instead of leaving the room he remained in it as if that was the most natural thing to do. It struck me that he must belong to the class of people we read of."

"I don't know much of the political state of affairs now," said Mr. Ffrench. "Some of these fellows are always bad enough, and this Haworth rose from the ranks. He was a foundry lad himself."

"I met Mr. Haworth, too," said Miss Ffrench. "He stopped in the street to stand looking after the carriage. He is a very big person."

"He is a very successful fellow," with something like a sigh. "A man who has made of himself what he has through sheer power of will and business capacity is a genius."

"What has he made of himself?" inquired Miss Ffrench.

"Well," replied her father, "the man is actually a millionaire. He is at the head of his branch of the trade; he leads the other manufacturers; he is a kind of king in the place. People may ignore him if they choose. He does not care, and there is no reason why he should."

Mr. Ffrench became rather excited. He flushed and spoke uneasily.

"There are plenty of gentlemen," he said. "We have gentlemen enough and to spare, but we have few men who can make a path through the world for themselves as he has done. For my part, I admire the man. He has the kind of force which moves me to admiration."

"I dare say," said Miss Ffrench, slowly, "that you would have admired the young workman I saw. It struck me at the time that you would."

"By the bye," her father asked with a new interest, "what kind of a young fellow was he? Perhaps it was the young fellow who is half American and——"

"He did not look like an Englishman," she interrupted. "He was too dark and tall and unconscious of himself, in spite of his awkwardness. He did not know that he was out of place."

"I have no doubt it was this Murdoch. He is a peculiar fellow, and I am as much interested in him as in Haworth. His father was a Lancashire man,—a half-crazy inventor who died leaving an unfinished model which was to have made his fortune. I have heard a great deal of the son. I wish I had seen him."

Rachel Ffrench made no reply. She had heard this kind of thing before. There had been a young man from Cumberland who had been on the point of inventing a new propelling power, but had, somehow or other, not done it; there had been a machinist from Manchester who had created an entirely new order of loom—which had not worked; and there had been half a dozen smaller lights whose inventions, though less involved, would still have made fortunes—if they had been quite practical. But Mr. Ffrench had mounted his hobby, which always stood saddled and bridled. He talked of Haworth and Haworth's success, the Works and their machinery. He calculated the expenses and the returns of the business. He even took out his tablets to get at the profits more accurately, and got down the possible cost of various improvements which had suggested themselves.

"He has done so much," he said, "that it would be easy for him to do more. He could accomplish anything if he were a better educated man—or had an educated man as partner. They say," he remarked afterward, "that this Murdoch is not an ignoramus by any means. I hear that he has a positive passion for books and that he has made several quite remarkable improvements and additions to the machinery at the Works. It would be an odd thing," biting the end of his pencil with a thoughtful air, "it would be a dramatic sort of thing if he should make a success of the idea the poor fellow, his father, left incomplete."

Indeed Miss Ffrench was quite prepared for his after-statement that he intended to pay a visit to the Works and their owner the next morning, though she could not altogether account for the slight hint of secret embarrassment which she fancied displayed itself when he made the announcement.

"It's true the man is rough and high-handed enough," he said. "He has not been too civil in his behavior to me in times gone by, but I should like to know more of him in spite of it. He is worth cultivating."

He appeared at the Works the following morning, awakening thereby some interest among the shrewder spirits who knew him of old.

"What's he up to now?" they said to each other. "He's getten some crank i' his yed or he would na be here."

Not being at any time specially shrewd in the study of human nature, it must be confessed that Mr. Ffrench was not prepared for the reception he met with in the owner's room. In his previous rare interviews with Jem Haworth he had been accorded but slight respect. His advances had been met in a manner savoring of rough contempt, his ephemeral hobbies disposed of with the amiable candor of the practical and not too polished mind; he knew he had been jeered at openly at times, and now the man who had regarded him lightly and as if he felt that he held the upper hand, received him almost with a confused, self-conscious air. He even flushed when he got up and awkwardly shook hands. "Perhaps," said his visitor to himself, "events have taught him to feel the lack in himself after all."

"I looked forward, before my return, to calling upon you," he said aloud. "And I am glad to have the opportunity at last."

Haworth reseated himself after giving him a chair, and answered with a nod and a somewhat incoherent welcome.

Ffrench settled himself with an agreeable consciousness of being less at a loss before the man than he had ever been in his life.

"What I have seen abroad," he said, "has added to the interest I have always felt in our own manufactures. You know that is a thing I have always cared for most. People have called it my hobby, though I don't think that is quite the right name for it. You have done a great deal since I went away."

"I shall do more yet," said Haworth with effort, "before I've done with the thing."

"You've done a good deal for Broxton. The place has grown wonderfully. Those cottages of yours are good work."

Haworth warmed up. His hand fell upon the table before him heavily.

"It's not Broxton I'm aimin' at," he said. "Broxton's naught to me. I'll have good work or none. It's this place here I'm at work on. I've said I'd set 'Haworth's' above 'em all, and I'll do it."

"You've done it already," answered Ffrench.

"Ay, but I tell you I'll set it higher yet. I've got the money and I've got the will. There's none on 'em can back down Jem Haworth."

"No," said Ffrench, suddenly and unaccountably conscious of a weakness in himself and his position. He did not quite understand the man. His heat was a little confusing.

"This," he decided mentally, "is his hobby."

He sat and listened with real excitement as Haworth launched out more freely and with a stronger touch of braggadocio.

He had set out in his own line and he meant to follow it in spite of all the gentlemen manufacturers in England. He had asked help from none of them, and they had given him none. He'd brought up the trade and he'd made money. There wasn't a bigger place in the country than "Haworth's," nor a place that did the work it did. He'd have naught cheap and he'd have no fancy prices. The chaps that worked for him knew their business and knew they'd lose naught by sticking to it. They knew, too, they'd got a master who looked sharp after 'em and stood no cheek nor no slack dodges.

"I've got the best lot in the trade under me," he said. "I've got a young chap in the engine-room as knows more about machinery than half the top-sawyers in England. By George! I wish I knew as much. He's a quiet chap and he's young; but if he knew how to look a bit sharper after himself, he'd make his fortune. The trouble is he's too quiet and a bit too much of a gentleman without knowing it. By George! he is a gentleman, if he is naught but Jem Haworth's engineer."

"He is proud of the fellow," thought Ffrench. "Proud of him, because he is a gentleman."

"He knows what's worth knowing," Haworth went on. "And he keeps it to himself till the time comes to use it. He's a chap that keeps his mouth shut. He comes up to my house and reads my books. I've not been brought up to books myself, but there's none of 'em he can't tackle. He's welcome to use aught I've got. I'm not such a fool as to grudge him what all my brass won't buy me."

"I think I've heard of him," said Ffrench. "You mean Murdoch."

"Ay," Haworth answered, "I mean Murdoch; and there's not many chaps like him. He's the only one of the sort I ever run up against."

"I should like to see him," said Ffrench. "My daughter saw him yesterday in one of the workmen's cottages and," with a faint smile, "he struck her as having rather the air of a radical. It was one of her feminine fancies."

There was a moment's halt and then Haworth made his reply as forcibly as ever.

"Radical be hanged," he said. "He's got work o' his own to attend to. He's one of the kind as leaves th' radicals alone. He's a straightforward chap that cares more for his books than aught else. I won't say," a trifle grudgingly, "that he's not a bit too straight in some things."

There was a halt again here which Ffrench rather wondered at; then Haworth spoke again, bluntly and yet lagging a little.

"I—I saw her, Miss Ffrench, myself yesterday. I was walking down the street when her carriage passed."

Ffrench looked at him with an inward start. It was his turn to flush now.

"I think," he said, "that she mentioned it to me."

He appeared a trifle pre-occupied for some minutes afterward, and when he roused himself laughed and spoke nervously. The color did not die out of his face during the remainder of his visit; even after he had made the tour of the Works and looked at the machinery and given a good deal of information concerning the manner in which things were done on the Continent, it was still there and perhaps it deepened slightly as he spoke his parting words.

"Then," he said, "I—we shall have the pleasure of seeing you at dinner to-morrow evening?"

"Yes," Haworth answered, "I'll be there."

CHAPTER XIV. NEARLY AN ACCIDENT.

It was Rachel Ffrench who received her father's guest the following evening. Mr. Ffrench had been delayed in his return from town and was still in his dressing-room. Accordingly when Haworth was announced, the doors of the drawing-room being flung open revealed to him the figure of his host's daughter alone.

The room was long and stately, and after she had risen from her seat it took Miss Ffrench some little time to make her way from one end to the other. Haworth had unconsciously halted after crossing the threshold, and it was not until she was half-way down the room that he bestirred himself to advance to meet her. He did not know why he had paused at first, and his sudden knowledge that he had done so roused him to a momentary savage anger.

"Dang it!" he said to himself. "Why did I stand there like a fool?"

The reason could not be explained briefly. His own house was a far more splendid affair than Ffrench's, and among his visitors from London and Manchester there were costumes far more gorgeous than that of Miss Ffrench. He was used to the flash of jewels and the gloss of brilliant colors. Miss Ffrench wore no ornaments at all, and her dark purple dress was simple and close-clinging.

A couple of paces from him she stopped and held out her hand.

"My father will be glad to see you," she said. "He was, unfortunately, detained this evening by business. He will be down stairs in a few moments."

His sense of being at a disadvantage when, after she had led him back to the fire, they were seated, was overwhelming. A great heat rushed over him; the hush of the room, broken only by the light ticking of the clock, was misery. His eye traveled stealthily from the hem of her dark purple gown to the crowning waves of her fair hair, but he had not a word to utter. It made him feel almost brutal.

"But the day'll come yet," he protested inwardly, feeling his weakness as he thought it, "when I'll hold my own. I've done it before, and I'll do it again."

Miss Ffrench regarded him with a clear and direct gaze. She did not look away from him at all; she was not in the least embarrassed, and though she did not smile, the calmness of her face was quite as perfect in expression.

"My father told me of his visit to your place," she said. "He interested me very much. I should like to see the Works, if you admit visitors. I know nothing of such things."

"Any time you choose to come," he answered, "I'll show you round—and be glad to do it. It's a pretty big place of the kind."

He was glad she had chosen this subject. If she would only go on, it would not be so bad. He would be in his own groove. And she did go on.

"I've seen very little of Broxton," she proceeded. "I spent a few weeks here before going abroad again with my father, and I cannot say I have been very fond of it. I do not like England, and on the Continent one hears unpleasant things of English manufacturing towns. I think," smiling a little for the first time, "that one always associates them with 'strikes' and squalid people."

"There is not much danger of strikes here," he replied. "I give my chaps fair play and let 'em know who's master."

"But they have radical clubs," she said, "and talk politics and get angry when they are not sober. I've heard that much already."

"They don't talk 'em in my place," he answered, dogmatically.

He was not quite sure whether it relieved him or not when Ffrench entered at this moment and interrupted them. He was more at his ease with Ffrench, and yet he felt himself at a disadvantage still. He scarcely knew how the night passed. A feverish unrest was upon him. Sometimes he hardly heard what his entertainer said, and Mr. Ffrench was in one of his most voluble and diffuse moods. He displayed his knowledge of trade and mechanics with gentlemanly ostentation; he talked of "Trades' Unions" and the master's difficulties; he introduced manufacturer's politics and expatiated on Continental weaknesses. He weighed the question of demand and supply and touched on "protective tariff."

"Blast him," said Haworth, growing bitter mentally, "he thinks I'm up to naught else, and he's right."

As her father talked Miss Ffrench joined in but seldom. She listened and looked on in a manner of which Haworth was conscious from first to last. The thought made its way into his mind, finally, that she looked on as if these matters did not touch her at all and she was only faintly curious about them. Her eyes rested on him with a secret air of watchful interest; he met them more than once as he looked up and she did not turn them away. He sat through it all, full of vengeful resentment, and was at once wretched and happy, in spite of it and himself.

When, at her father's request, she played and sang, he sat apart moody and yet full of clumsy rapture. He knew nothing of the music, but his passion found a tongue in it, nevertheless. If she had played badly he would have taken the lack of harmony for granted, but as she played well he experienced a pleasure, while he did not comprehend.

When it was all over and he found himself out alone in the road in the dark, he was feverish still.

"I don't seem to have made naught at th' first sight," he said. Then he added with dogged exultation, "But I don't look for smooth sailing. I know enough for that. I've seen her and been nigh her, and that's worth setting down—with a chap like me."

At the end of the week a carriage drove up to the gate-way of the Works, and Mr. Ffrench and his daughter descended from it. Mr. Ffrench was in the best of humors; he was in his element as he expatiated upon the size and appointments of the place. He had been expatiating upon them during the whole of the drive.

On their being joined by Haworth himself, Miss Ffrench decided inwardly that here upon his own domain he was not so wholly objectionable as she had fancied at first—even that he was deserving of a certain degree of approval. Despite the signs of elated excitement, her quick eye detected at once that he was more at his ease. His big frame did not look out of place; he moved as if he was at home, and upon the whole his rough air of authority and the promptness with which his commands were obeyed did not displease her.

"He is master," she said to herself.

She was fond of power and liked the evidence of it in others. She did not object to the looks the men, who were at work, cast upon her as she went from one department to another. Her beauty had never yet failed to command masculine homage from all ranks. The great black fellows at the furnaces exchanged comments as she passed. They would have paused in their work to look at her if they had dared. The object of their admiration bore it calmly; it neither confounded nor touched her; it did not move her at all.

Mr. Ffrench commented, examined and explained with delightful eloquence.

"We are fortunate in timing our visit so well," he said to his daughter. "They are filling an immense order for the most important railroad in the country. On my honor, I would rather be at the head of such a gigantic establishment than sit on the throne of England! But where is this protégé of yours?" he said to Haworth at last. "I should like above all things to see him."

"Murdoch?" answered Haworth. "Oh, we're coming to him after a bit. He's in among the engines."

When they reached the engine-rooms Haworth presented him with little ceremony, and explained the purpose of their visit. They wanted to see the engines and he was the man to make the most of them.

Mr. Ffrench's interest was awakened readily. The mechanic from Cumberland had been a pretentious ignoramus; the young man from Manchester had dropped his aspirates and worn loud plaids and flaming neck-ties, but this was a less objectionable form of genius.

Mr. Ffrench began to ask questions and make himself agreeable, and in a short time was very well entertained indeed.

Miss Ffrench listened with but slight demonstrations of interest. She did not understand the conversation which was being carried on between her father and Murdoch, and she made no pretense of doing so.

"It is all very clear to them" she said to Haworth as they stood near each other.

"It's all clear enough to him," said Haworth, signifying Murdoch with a gesture.

Upon which Miss Ffrench smiled a little. She was not sensitive upon the subject of her father's hobbies, and the coarse frankness of the remark amused her.

But notwithstanding her lack of interest she drew nearer to the engine finally and stood looking at it, feeling at once fascinated and unpleasantly overpowered by its heavy, invariable motion.

It was as she stood in this way a little later that Murdoch's glance fell upon her. The next instant, with the simultaneous cry of terror which broke from the others, he had thrown himself forward and dragged her back by main force, and among the thunderous wheels and rods and shafts there was slowly twisted and torn and ground into shreds a fragment of the delicate fabric of her dress. It was scarcely the work of a second. Her father staggered toward them white and trembling.

"Good God!" he cried. "Good God! What——" the words died upon his bloodless lips.

She freed herself from Murdoch's grasp and stood upright. She did not look at him at all, she looked at her father and lightly brushed with her hand her sleeve at the wrist. Despite her pallor it was difficult to realize that she only held herself erect by a terrible effort of self-control.

"Why"—she said—"why did he touch me—in that manner?"

Haworth uttered a smothered oath; Murdoch turned about and strode out of the room. He did not care to remain to hear the explanation.

As he went out into the open air a fellow-workman, passing by, stopped to stare at him.

"What's up wi' thee?" he asked. "Has tha been punsin Haworth o'er again?" The incident referred to being always remembered as a savory and delectable piece of humor.

Murdoch turned to him with a dazed look.

"I—" he stammered. "We—have very nearly had an accident." And went on his way without further explanation.

CHAPTER XV. "IT WOULD BE A GOOD THING."

Exciting events were not so common in Broxton and its vicinity that this one could remain in the background. It furnished a topic of conversation for the dinner and tea-tables of every family within ten miles of the place. On Murdoch's next visit to the Briarleys', Granny Dixon insisted on having the matter explained for the fortieth time and was manifestly disgusted by the lack of dramatic incident connected with it.

"Tha seed her dress catch i' th' wheel an' dragged her back," she shouted. "Was na theer nowt else? Did na she swound away, nor nothin'?"

"No," he answered. "She did not know what had happened at first."

Granny Dixon gave him a shrewd glance of examination, and then favored him with a confidential remark, presented at the top of her voice.

"I conna bide her," she said.

"What did Mr. Ffrench say to thee?" asked Janey. "Does tha think he'll gie thee owt fur it?"

"No," answered Murdoch. "He won't do that."

"He owt to," said Janey fretfully. "An' tha owt to tak' it, if he does. Tha does na think enow o' money an' th' loike. Yo'll nivver get on i' th' world if yo' mak' light o' money an' let it slip by yo'."

Floxham had told the story somewhat surlily to his friends, and his friends had retailed it over their beer, and the particulars had thus become common property.

"What did she say?" Floxham had remarked at the first relation. "She said nowt, that's what she said. She did na quoite mak' th' thing out at first, an' she stood theer brushin' th' black off her sleeve. Happen," sardonically, "she did na loike th' notion o' a working chap catchin' howd on her wi'out apologizin'."

Haworth asked Murdoch to spend an evening with him, and sat moody and silent through the greater part of it. At last he said:

"You think you've been devilish badly treated," he said. "But, by the Lord! I wish I was in your place."

"You wish," repeated Murdoch, "that you were in my place? I don't know that it's a particularly pleasant place to be in."

Haworth leaned forward upon the table and stared across at him gloomily.

"Look here," he said. "You know naught about her. She's hard to get at; but she'll remember what's happened; cool as she took it, she'll remember it."

"I don't want her to remember it," returned Murdoch. "Why should it matter? It's a thing of yesterday. It was nothing but chance. Let it go."

"Confound it!" said Haworth, with a restive moroseness. "I tell you I wish I'd been in your place—at twice the risk."

The same day Mr. Ffrench had made a visit to the Works for the purpose of setting his mind at rest and expressing his gratitude in a graceful manner. In fact he was rather glad of the opportunity to present himself upon the ground so soon again. But on confronting the hero of the hour, he found that somehow the affair dwindled and assumed an altogether incidental and unheroic aspect. His rather high-flown phrases modified themselves and took a different tone.

"He is either very reserved or very shy," he said afterward to his daughter. "It is not easy to reach him at the outset. There seems a lack of enthusiasm about him, so to speak."

"Will he come to the house?" asked Miss Ffrench.

"Oh yes. I suppose he will come, but it was very plain that he would rather have stayed away. He had too much good taste to refuse point-blank to let you speak to him."

"Good taste!" repeated Miss Ffrench.

Her father turned upon her with manifest irritation.

"Good taste!" he repeated petulantly. "Cannot you see that the poor fellow is a gentleman? I wish you would show less of this nonsensical caste prejudice, Rachel."

"I suppose one necessarily dispenses with a good deal of it in a place like this," she answered. "In making friends with Mr. Haworth, for instance——"

Mr. Ffrench drew nearer to her and rested his elbow upon the mantel with rather an embarrassed expression.

"I wish you to—to behave well to Haworth," he said faltering. "I—a great deal may—may depend upon it."

She looked up at him at once, lifting her eyes in a serene glance.

"Do you want to go into the iron trade?" she asked relentlessly.

He blushed scarlet, but she did not move her eyes from his face on that account.

"What—what Haworth needs," he stammered, "is a—a man of education to—to assist him. A man who had studied the scientific features of—of things, might suggest valuable ideas to him. There is an—an immense field open to a rich, enterprising fellow such as he is—a man who is fearless and—and who has the means to carry out his ventures."

"You mean a man who will try to do new things," she remarked. "Do you think he would?"

"The trouble has been," floundering more hopelessly than ever, "that his lack of cultivation has—well, has forced him to act in a single groove. If—if he had a—a partner who—knew the ropes, so to speak—his business would be doubled—trebled."

She repeated aloud one of his words.

"A partner," she said.

He ran his hand through his hair and stared at her, wishing that he could think of something decided to say.

"Does he know you would like to be his partner?" she asked next.

"N—no," he faltered, "not exactly."

She sat a moment looking at the fire.

"I do not believe he would do it," she said at last. "He is too proud of having done everything single-handed."

Then she looked at her father again.

"If he would," she said, "and there were no rash ventures made, it would be a good thing."

CHAPTER XVI. "A POOR CHAP AS IS ALLUS I' TROUBLE."

"It was nothing but a chance, after all," Murdoch said to Miss Ffrench, just as he had said to Haworth. "It happened that I was the first to see the danger."

She stood opposite to him upon the hearth in her father's house. Neither of them had sat down. She rested her arm upon the low mantel and played with a flower she held in her hand. She looked at the flower as she made the reply.

"You think of it very lightly," she said with rather cold deliberateness. He did not regard her furtively as Haworth had done. Raising her eyes suddenly, after she had said this, she met his, which were fixed upon her.

"No," he answered. "Not lightly at all. It was a horrible thing. I shall never forget it."

She shuddered.

"Nor I," she said.

Then she added, rather in the tone of one reluctantly making a confession:

"I have not slept easily through one night since."

"That is very natural," he returned; "but the feeling will wear away."

He would have left her then, but she stopped him with a gesture.

"Wait a moment," she said. "There is something else."

He paused as she bade him. A slight color rose to her cheek.

"When I spoke," she said, "I did not understand at all what had happened—not at all. I was stunned and angry. I thought that if I was too near you, you might have spoken instead of doing as you did." Then with studied coldness and meeting his gaze fully, "It would have been a vile thing to have said—if I had understood."

"Yes," he answered. "It would have been a vile thing, if you had understood; but you did not, and I realized that when I had time to think over it coolly."

"Then at first," she put it to him, "it made you angry?"

"Yes. I had run some risk, you know, and had had the luck to save your life."

The interview ended here, and it was some time before they met again.

But Murdoch heard of her often; so often indeed that she was kept pretty constantly before him. He heard of her from Haworth, from the Briarleys, from numberless sources indeed.

It became her caprice to make a kind of study of the people around her and to find entertainment in it. When she drove through the streets of the little town, past the workmen's cottages, and the Works themselves, she was stared at and commented upon. Her beauty, her dress, her manners roused the beholders either to lavish or grudging acknowledgment. Dirty children sometimes followed her carriage, and on its stopping at any point a small crowd gathered about it.

"She's been here again," shouted Granny Dixon one evening as Murdoch took a seat near her chair.

"Who?" he asked.

"Her. That lass o' Ffrench's—th' one I conna bide. She mak's out she's ta'en a fancy to our Janey. I dunnot believe her," at a louder pitch and with vigorous nods.

"Tha nasty tempert owd body!" cried Mrs. Briarley sotto voce. "Get out wi' thee!"

"What art tha sayin'?" demanded her guest. "Dunnot tell me tha wur sayin' nowt. I saw thee."

"I—I wur sayin' it wur a bad day fur th' wash," faltered the criminal, "an' fur them as had rheumatiz. How's—how's thine, Misses?"

"Tha'rt tellin' a lee," was the rejoinder. "Tha wert sayin' summat ill o' me. I caught thee at it."

Then going back to the subject and turning to Murdoch:

"I dunnot believe her! She cares nowt fur nowt at th' top o' th' earth but hersen. She set here to-day gettin' em to mak' foo's o' theersens because it happen't to suit her. She's getten nowt better to do an' she wants to pass th' toime—if theer's nowt else at th' back on it. She's Will Ffrench ower again. She conna mak' a foo' o' me."

"He made foo' enow o' thee i' his day," commented Mrs. Briarley, cautiously.

Granny Dixon favored her with a sharper glance than before.

"Tha'rt sayin' summat ill again," she cried. "Howd thy tongue!"

"Eh!" whimpered the poor woman. "A body dare na say theer soul's theer own when hoo's about—hoo's that sharp an' ill-farrant."

A few minutes after, Briarley came in. Janey piloted him and he entered with a smile at once apologetic and encouraging.

"He wur theer," said Janey. "But he had na had nowt."

Briarley sidled forward and seated himself upon the edge of a chair; his smile broadened steadily, but he was in a tremendous minority. Granny Dixon transfixed him with her baleful eye, and under its influence the smile was graduated from exhilarated friendliness to gravity, from gravity to gentle melancholy, from melancholy to deepest gloom. But at this stage a happy thought struck him and he beamed again.

"How—how art tha doin', Misses?" he quavered. "I hope tha'rt makin' thysen comfortable."

The reception this polite anxiety met with was not encouraging. Granny Dixon's eye assumed an expression still more baleful.

"Tha'st been at it again," she shouted. "Tha'st been at it again. Tha'll neer git none o' my brass to spend at th' ale-house. Mak' sure o' that."

Mr. Briarley turned his attention to the fire again. Melancholy was upon the point of marking him for her own, when the most delicate of tact came to his rescue.

"It is na thy brass we want, Misses," he proclaimed. "It's—it's thy comp'ny." And then clenched the matter by adding still more feebly, "Ay, to be sure it's thy comp'ny, is na it, Sararann?"

"Ay," faltered Mrs. Briarley, "to be sure."

"It's nowt o' th' soart," answered Granny Dixon, in the tone of the last trump. "An' dunnot yo' threep me down as it is."

Mr. Briarley's countenance fell. Mrs. Briarley shed a few natural tears under cover of the baby; discretion and delicacy forbade either to retort. Their venerable guest having badgered them into submission glared at the fire with the air of one who detected its feeble cunning and defied it.

It was Mr. Briarley who first attempted to recover cheerfulness.

"Tha'st had quality to see thee, Sararann," he ventured. "Our Jane towd me."

"Ay," answered Mrs. Briarley, tearfully.

Mr. Briarley fell into indiscreet reverie.

"The chap as gets her," he said, "'ll get a han'some lass. I would na moind," modestly, "I would na moind bein' i' his shoes mysen."

Mrs. Briarley's smothered wrongs broke forth.

"Thee!" she cried out. "Tha brazant nowt! I wonder tha'rt na sham't o' thy face—talkin' i' that rood about a lady, an' afore thy own wife! I wonder tha art na sham't."

Mr. Briarley's courage forsook him. He sought refuge in submissive penitence almost lachrymose.

"I did na mean nowt, Sararann," he protested meekly. "It wur a slip o' th' tongue, lass. I'm—I'm not th' build as a young woman o' that soart ud be loike to tak' up wi'."

"Yo' wur good enow fur me onct," replied Mrs. Briarley, sharply. "A noice un yo' are settin' yore wedded wife below other people—as if she wur dirt."

"Ay, Sararann," the criminal faltered, "I wur good enow fur yo' but—but—yo——"

But at this point he dropped his head upon his hand, shaking it in mournful contrition.

"I'm a poor chap," he said. "I'm nowt but a poor chap as is allus i' trouble. I'm not th' man yo' ought to ha' had, Sararann."

"Nay," retorted Mrs. Briarley. "That tha'rt not, an' it's a pity tha did na foind that theer out thirteen year ago."

Mr. Briarley shook his head with a still deeper depression.

"Ay, Sararann," he answered, "seems loike it is."

He did not recover himself until Murdoch took his departure, and then he followed him deprecatingly to the door.

"Does tha think," he asked, "as that theer's true?"

"That what is true?"

"That theer th' chaps has been talkin' ower."

"I don't know," answered Murdoch, "what they have been talking over."

"They're gettin' it goin' among 'em as Haworth's goin' to tak' Ffrench in partner."

Murdoch looked up the road for a few seconds before he replied. He was thinking over the events of the past week.

"I do not think it is true," he said, after this pause. "I don't think it can be. Haworth is not the man to do it."

But the idea was such a startling one, presented in this form, that it gave him a kind of shock; and as he went on his way naturally thinking over the matter, he derived some consolation from repeating aloud his last words:

"No, it is not likely. Haworth is not the man to do it."

CHAPTER XVII. A FLOWER.

But at last it was evident that the acquaintance between Haworth and Ffrench had advanced with great rapidity. Ffrench appeared at the Works, on an average, three or four times a week, and it had become a common affair for Haworth to spend an evening with him and his daughter. He was more comfortable in his position of guest in these days. Custom had given him greater ease and self-possession. After two visits he had begun to give himself up to the feverish enjoyment of the hour. His glances were no longer furtive and embarrassed. At times he reached a desperate boldness.

"There's something about her," he said to Murdoch, "that draws a fellow on and holds him off both at the same time. Sometimes I nigh lose my head when I'm with her."

He was moody and resentful at times, but he went again and again, and held his own after a manner. On the occasion of the first dinner Mr. Ffrench gave to his old friends, no small excitement was created by Haworth's presence among the guests. The first man who, entering the room with his wife and daughters, caught sight of his brawny frame and rather dogged face, faltered and grew nervous, and would have turned back if he had possessed the courage to be the first to protest. Everybody else lacked the same courage, it appeared, for nobody did protest openly, though there were comments enough made in private, and as much coldness of manner as good breeding would allow.

Miss Ffrench herself was neither depressed nor ill at ease. It was reluctantly admitted that she had never appeared to a greater advantage nor in better spirits.

Before the evening was half over it was evident to all that she was not resenting the presence of her father's new found friend. She listened to his attempts at conversation with an attentive and suave little smile. If she was amusing herself at his expense, she was at the same time amusing herself at the expense of those who looked on, and was delicately defying their opinion.

Jem Haworth went home that night excited and exultant. He lay awake through the night, and went down to the Works early.

"I didn't get the worst of it, after all," he said to Murdoch. "Let 'em grin and sert if they will—'them laughs that wins.' She—she never was as handsome in her life as she was last night, and she never treated me as well. She never says much. She only lets a fellow come nigh and talk; but she treated me well—in her way."

"I'm going to send for my mother," he said afterward, somewhat shamefacedly. "I'm goin' to begin a straight life; I want naught to stand agin me. And if she's here they'll come to see her. I want all the chances I can get."

He wrote the letter to his mother the same day.

"The old lady will be glad enough to come," he said, when he had finished it. "The finery about her will trouble her a bit at first, but she'll get over it."

His day's work over, Murdoch did not return home at once. His restless habit of taking long rambles across the country had asserted itself with unusual strength, of late. He spent little time in the house. To-night he was later than usual. He came in fagged and mud-splashed. Christian was leaving the room as he entered it, but she stopped with her hand upon the door.

"We have had visitors," she said.

"Who?" he asked.

"Mr. Ffrench and his daughter. Mr. Ffrench wanted to see you. She did not come in, but sat in the carriage outside."

She shut the door and came back to the hearth.

"She despises us all!" she said. "She despises us all!"

He had flung himself into a chair and lay back, clasping his hands behind his head and looking gloomily before him.

"Sometimes I think she does," he said. "But what of that?"

She answered without looking at him.

"To be sure," she said. "What of that?"

After a little she spoke again.

"There is something I have thought of saying to you," she said. "It is this. I am happier here than I ever was before."

"I am very glad," he answered.

"I never thought of being happy," she went on, "or like other women in anything. I—I was different."

She said the words with perfect coldness.

"I was different."

"Different!" he echoed absently, and then checked himself. "Don't say that," he said. "Don't think it. It won't do. Why shouldn't you be as good and happy as any woman who ever lived?"

She remained silent. But her silence only stirred him afresh.

"It is a bad beginning," he said. "I know it is because I have tried it. I have said to myself that I was different from other men, too."

He ended with an impatient movement and a sound half like a groan.

"Here I am," he cried, "telling myself it is better to battle against the strongest feeling of my life because I am 'different'—because there is a kind of taint in my blood. I don't begin as other men do by hoping. I begin by despairing, and yet I can't give up. How it will end, God knows!"

"I understand you better than you think," she said.

Something in her voice startled him.

"What!" he exclaimed. "Has my mother——"

He stopped and gazed at her, wondering. Some powerful emotion he could not comprehend expressed itself in her face.

"She does not speak of it often," she said. "She thinks of it always."

"Yes," he answered. "I know that. She is afraid. She is haunted by her dread of it—and," his voice dropping, "so am I."

He felt it almost unnatural that he should speak so freely. He had found it rather difficult to accustom himself to her presence in the house, sometimes he had even been repelled by it, and yet, just at this moment, he felt somehow as if they stood upon the same platform and were near each other.

"It will break loose some day," he cried. "And the day is not far off. I shall run the risk and either win or lose. I fight hard for every day of dull quiet I gain. When I look back over the past I feel that perhaps I am holding a chained devil; but when I look forward I forget, and doubt seems folly."

"In your place," she said, "I would risk my life upon it!"

The passion in her voice amazed him. He comprehended even less clearly than before.

"I know what it has cost," she said. "No one better. I am afraid to pass the door of the room where it lies, in the dark. It is like a dead thing, always there. Sometimes I fancy it is not alone and that the door might open and show me some one with it."

"What do you mean?" he said. "You speak as if——"

"You would not understand if I should tell you," she answered a little bitterly. "We are not very good friends—perhaps we never shall be—but I will tell you this again, that in your place I would never give it up—never! I would be true to him, if all the world were against me!"

She went away and shortly afterward he left the room himself, intending to go upstairs.

As he reached the bottom of the staircase, a light from above fell upon his face and caused him to raise it. The narrow passage itself was dark, but on the topmost stair his mother stood holding a lamp whose light struck upon him. She did not advance, but waited as he came upward, looking down at him, not speaking. Then they passed each other, going their separate ways.

The next day Ffrench appeared in the engine-room itself. He had come to see Murdoch, and having seen him went away in most excellent humor.

"What's he after?" inquired Floxham, when he was gone.

"He wants me at his house," said Murdoch. "He says he needs my opinion in some matter."

He went to the house the same evening, and gave his opinion upon the matter in question, and upon several others also. In fact, Mr. Ffrench took possession of him as he had taken possession of the young man from Manchester, and the Cumberland mechanic, though in this case he had different metal to work upon. He was amiable, generous and talkative. He exhibited his minerals, his plans for improved factories and workmen's dwelling-houses, his little collection of models which had proved impracticable, and his books on mechanics and manufactures. He was as generous as Haworth himself in the matter of his library; it was at his visitor's service whenever he chose.

As they talked Rachel Ffrench remained in the room. During the evening she went to the piano and sitting down played and sung softly as if for no other ears than her own. Once, on her father's leaving the room, she turned and spoke to Murdoch.

"You were right in saying I should outlive my terror of what happened to me," she said. "It has almost entirely worn away."

"I am glad," he answered.

She held in her belt a flower like the one which had attracted Granny Dixon's attention. As she crossed the room shortly afterward it fell upon the floor. She picked it up but, instead of replacing it, laid it carelessly upon the table at Murdoch's side.

After he had risen from his chair, when on the point of leaving, he stood near this table and almost unconsciously took the flower up, and when he went out of the house he held it in his fingers.

The night was dark and his mood was preoccupied. He scarcely thought of the path before him at all, and on passing through the gate he came, without any warning, upon a figure standing before it. He drew back and would have spoken had he been given the time.

"Hush," said Haworth's voice. "It's me, lad."

"What are you doing here?" asked Murdoch. "Are you going in?"

"No," surlily, "I'm not."

Murdoch said no more. Haworth turned with him and strode along by his side. But he got over his ill-temper sufficiently to speak after a few minutes.

"It's the old tale," he said. "I'm making a fool of myself. I can't keep away. I was there last night, and to-night the fit came upon me so strong that I was bound to go. But when I got there I'd had time to think it over and I couldn't make up my mind to go in. I knew I'd better give her a rest. What did Ffrench want of you?"

Murdoch explained.