Haworth's

CHAPTER XXXIX. "IT IS DONE WITH."

After the departure of Haworth and Murdoch, Mr. Ffrench waited for some time for his daughter's appearance. He picked up a pamphlet and turned over its leaves uneasily, trying to read here and there, and making no great success of the effort. He was in a disturbed and nervous mood, the evening had been a trial to him, more especially the latter part of it during which Haworth sat on the other side of the table in his usual awkwardly free and easy posture, his hands in his pockets, his feet thrust out before him. His silence and the expression he wore had not been of a kind to relieve his companion of any tithe of the burden which had gradually accumulated upon his not too muscular shoulders. At the outset Ffrench had been simply bewildered, then somewhat anxious and annoyed, but to-day he had been stunned. Haworth's departure was an immense relief to him. It was often a relief to him in these days. Then he heard Murdoch descend the stairs and leave the house, and he waited with mingled dread and anxiousness for Rachel's coming. But she did not make her appearance. He heard her walk across the room after Murdoch left her, and then she did not seem to move again.

After the lapse of half an hour he laid his pamphlet aside and rose himself. He coughed two or three times and paced the floor a little—gradually he edged toward the folding doors leading into the front room and passed through them.

Rachel stood at one of the windows, which was thrown open. She was leaning against its side and looking out into the night. When she turned toward him something in her manner caused in Ffrench an increase of nervousness amounting to irritation.

"You wish to say something to me," she remarked. "What is it?"

"Yes," he answered. "I wish to say something to you."

He could not make up his mind to say it for a moment or so. He found himself returning her undisturbed glance with an excited and bewildered one.

"I—the fact is"—he broke forth, desperately, "I—I do not understand you."

"That is not at all singular," she replied. "You have often said so before."

He began to lose his temper and to walk about the room.

"You have often chosen to seem incomprehensible," he said, "but this is the most extraordinary thing you have done yet. You—you must know that it looks very bad—that people are discussing you openly—you of all women!"

Suddenly he wheeled about and stopped, staring at her with more uncertainty and bewilderment than ever.

"I ought to know you better," he said, "I do know you better than to think you capable of any weakness of—of that kind. You are not capable of it. You are too proud and too fond of yourself, and yet"——

"And yet what?" she demanded, in a peculiar, low voice.

He faltered visibly.

"And yet you are permitting yourself to—to be talked over and—misunderstood."

"Do you think," she asked, in the same voice, "that I care for being 'talked over?'"

"You would care if you knew what is said," he responded. "You do not know."

"I can guess," she replied, "easily."

But she was deadly pale and he saw it, and her humiliation was that she knew he saw it.

"What you do," he continued, "is of more consequence than what most women do. You are not popular. You have held yourself very high and have set people at defiance. If you should be guilty of a romantic folly, it would go harder with you than with others."

"I know that," she answered him, "far better than you do."

She held herself quite erect and kept her eyes steadily upon him.

"What is the romantic folly?" she put it to him.

He could not have put it into words just then if his life had depended upon his power to do it.

"You will not commit it," he said. "It is not in you to do it, but you have put yourself in a false position, and it is very unpleasant for both of us."

She stopped him.

"You are very much afraid of speaking plainly," she said. "Be more definite."

He flushed to the roots of his hair in his confusion and uneasiness. There was no way out of the difficulty.

"You have adopted such a manner with the world generally," he floundered, "that a concession from you means a great deal. You—you have been making extraordinary concessions. It is easy to see that this young fellow is madly enamored of you. He does not know how to conceal it, and he does not try. You have not seemed to demand that he should. You have let him follow you, and come and go as his passion and simplicity prompted him. One might say you had encouraged him—though encouraged seems hardly the word to use."

"No," she interrupted, "it is not the word to use."

"He has made himself conspicuous and you too, and you have never protested by word or deed. When he was in danger you actually risked your life for him."

"Great heaven!" she ejaculated.

The truth of what he said came upon her like a flash. Until this moment she had only seen the night from one stand-point, and to see it from this one was a deadly blow to her. She lost her balance.

"How dare you?" she cried breathlessly. "I was mad with excitement. If I had stopped to think——"

"You usually do stop to think," he put in. "That was why I was amazed. You did a thing without calculating its significance. You never did so before in your life. You know that it is true. You pride yourself upon it."

He could have said nothing so bitter and terrible. For the moment they had changed places. It was he who had presented a weakness to her. She did pride herself upon her cool power of calculation.

"Go on!" she exclaimed.

"He has been here half the day," he proceeded, growing bolder. "You were out in the garden together all the afternoon—he has only just left you. When you contrast his position with yours is not that an extraordinary thing? What should you say if another woman had gone so far? Two years ago, he was Haworth's engineer. He is a wonderful fellow and a genius, and the world will hear of him yet. I should never think of anything but that if I were the only individual concerned, but you—you treated him badly enough at first."

She turned paler and paler.

"You think that I—that I——"

She had meant to daunt him with the most daring speech she could make, but it would not complete itself. She faltered and broke down.

"I don't know what to think," he answered desperately. "It seems impossible. Good heavens! it is impossible!—you—it is not in your nature."

"No," she said, "it is not."

Even in that brief space she had recovered herself wholly. She met his glance just as she had met it before, even with more perfect sang froid.

"I will tell you what to think," she went on. "I have been very dull here. I wished from the first that I had never come. I hate the people, and I despise them more than I hate them. I must be amused and interested, and they are less than nothing. The person you speak of was different. I suppose what you say of him is true and he is a genius. I care nothing for that in itself, but he has managed to interest me. At first I thought him only absurd; he was of a low class and a common workman, and he was so simple and ignorant of the world that he did not feel his position or did not care. That amused me and I led him on to revealing himself. Then I found out that there was a difference between him and the rest of his class, and I began to study him. I have no sentimental notions about his honor and good qualities. Those things do not affect me, but I have been interested and the time has passed more easily. Now the matter will end just as it began,—not because I am tired of him or because I care for what people say, but because I think it is time,—and I choose that it should. It is done with from to-night."

"Good heaven!" he cried. "You are not going to drop the poor fellow like that?"

"You may call it what you please," she returned. "I have gone as far as I choose to go, and it is done with from to-night."

Mr. Ffrench's excitement became something painful to see. Between his embarrassment as a weak nature before a strong one,—an embarrassment which was founded upon secret fear of unpleasant results,—between this and the natural compunctions arising from tendencies toward a certain refined and amiable sense of fairness, he well-nigh lost all control over himself and became courageous. He grew heated and flushed and burst forth into protest.

"My dear," he said, "I must say it's a—a deuced ungentlemanly business!"

Her lack of response absolutely inspired him.

"It's a deuced ill-bred business," he added, "from first to last."

She did not reply even to that, so he went on, growing warmer and warmer.

"You have taunted me with being afraid of you," he said, "though you have never put it into so many words. Perhaps I have been afraid of you. You can make yourself confoundedly unpleasant at times,—and I may have shrunk from saying what would rouse you,—but I must speak my mind about this, and say it is a deucedly cruel and unfair thing, and is unworthy of you. A less well-bred woman might have done it."

A little color rose to her cheek and remained there, but she did not answer still.

"He is an innocent fellow," he proceeded, "an unworldly fellow; he has lived in his books and his work, and he knows nothing of women. His passion for you is a pure, romantic one; he would lay his world at your feet. Call it folly, if you will,—it is folly,—but allow me to tell you it is worthy of a better object."

He was so astonished at his own daring that he stopped to see what effect it had produced.

She replied by asking a simple but utterly confounding question.

"What," she said, "would you wish me to do?"

"What would I wish you to do?" he stammered. "What? I—I hardly know."

And after regarding her helplessly a little longer, he turned about and left the room.

CHAPTER XL. "LOOK OUT!"

The next morning Ffrench rather surprised Murdoch by walking into his cell with the evident intention of paying him a somewhat prolonged visit. It was not, however, the fact of his appearing there which was unusual enough to excite wonder, but a certain degree of mingled constraint and effusiveness in his manner. It was as if he was troubled with some mental compunctions which he was desirous of setting at rest. At times he talked very fast and in a comparatively light and jocular vein, and again he was silent for some minutes, invariably rousing himself from his abstraction with a sudden effort. Several times Murdoch found that he was regarding him with a disturbed air of anxiety.

Before going away he made an erratic and indecisive tour of the little room, glancing at drawings and picking up first one thing and then another.

"You have a good many things here," he said, "of one kind and another."

"Yes," Murdoch answered, absently.

Ffrench glanced around at the jumble of mechanical odds and ends, the plans and models in various stages of neglect or completion.

"It's a queer place," he commented, "and it has an air of significance. It's crammed with ideas—of one kind and another."

"Yes," Murdoch answered, as before.

Ffrench approached him and laid his hand weakly on his shoulder.

"You are a fellow of ideas," he said, "and you have a good deal before you. Whatever disappointments you might meet with, you would always have a great deal before you. You have ideas. I," with apparent inconsequence, "I haven't, you know."

Murdoch looked somewhat puzzled, but he did not contradict him, so he repeated his statement.

"I haven't, you know. I wish I had."

Then he dropped his hand and looked indefinite again.

"I should like you to always remember that I am your friend," he said. "I wish I could have been of more service to you. You are a fine fellow, Murdoch. I have admired you—I have liked you. Don't forget it."

And he went away carrying the burden of his indecision and embarrassment and good intention with much amiable awkwardness.

That day Murdoch did not see Rachel Ffrench. Circumstances occurred which kept him at work until a late hour. The next day it was the same story, and the next also. A series of incidents seemed to combine against him, and the end of each day found him worn out and fretted. But on the fourth he was free again, and early in the evening found himself within sight of the iron gates. Every pulse in his body throbbed as he passed through them. He was full of intense expectation. He could scarcely bear to think of what was before him. His desperate happiness was a kind of pain. One of his chief longings was that he might find her wearing the pale blue dress again and that when he entered she might be standing in the centre of the room as he had left her. Then it would seem as if there had been no nights and days between the last terribly happy moment and this. The thought which flashed across his mind that there might possibly be some one else in the room was a shock to him.

"If she is not alone," he said to himself, "it will be unbearable."

As he passed up the walk, he came upon a tall white lily blooming on one of the border beds. He was in a sufficiently mystical and emotional mood to be stopped by it.

"It is like her," he said. And he gathered it and took it with him to the house.

The first thing upon which his eye rested when he stood upon the threshold of the room was the pale blue color, and she was standing just as he had left her, it seemed to him upon the very same spot upon which they had parted. His wish had been realized so far at least.

He was obliged to pause a moment to regain his self-control. It was an actual truth that he could not have trusted himself so far as to go in at once.

It was best that he did not. The next instant she turned and spoke to a third person at the other side of the room, and even as she did so caught sight of him and stopped.

"Here is Mr. Murdoch," she said, and paused, waiting for him to come forward. She did not advance to meet him, did not stir until he was scarcely more than a pace from her. She simply waited, watching him as he moved toward her, as if she were a little curious to see what he would do. Then she gave him her hand, and he took it with a feeling that something unnatural had happened, or that he was suddenly awakening from a delusion.

He did not even speak. It was she who spoke, turning toward the person whom she had addressed before he entered.

"You have heard us speak of Mr. Murdoch," she said; and then to himself, "This is M. Saint Méran."

M. Saint Méran rose and bowed profoundly. He presented, as his best points, long, graceful limbs and a pair of clear gray eyes, which seemed to hold their opinions in check. He regarded Murdoch with an expression of suave interest and made a well-bred speech of greeting.

Murdoch said nothing. He could think of nothing to say. He was never very ready of speech. He bowed with an uncertain air, and almost immediately wandered off to the other end of the room, holding his lily in his hand. He began to turn over the pages of a book of engravings, seeing none of them. After a little while a peculiar perfume close to him attracted his attention, and he looked downward vacantly and saw the lily. Then he laid it down and moved farther away.

Afterward—he did not know how long afterward—Ffrench came in. He seemed in a very feverish state of mind, talking a great deal and rather inanely, and forcing Murdoch to reply and join in the conversation.

M. Saint Méran held himself with a graceful air of security and self-poise, and made gentle efforts at scientific remark which should also have an interest for genius of a mechanical and inventive turn. But Murdoch's replies were vague. His glance followed Rachel Ffrench. He devoured her with his eyes—a violence which she bore very well. At last—he had not been in the house an hour—he left his chair and went to her.

"I am going away," he said in an undertone. "Good-night!"

She did not seem to hear him. She was speaking to Saint Méran.

"Good night!" he repeated, in the same tone, not raising it at all, only giving it an intense, concentrated sound.

She turned her face toward him.

"Good-night!" she answered.

Upon the table stood a basket filled with purchases, and near the basket lay a shawl which Janey wore upon all occasions requiring a toilet. She had just come in from her shopping, and sat on a stool in her usual posture, not having yet removed the large bonnet which spread its brim around her small face, a respectable and steady-going aureole enlivened with bunches of flowers which in their better days had rejoiced Mrs. Briarley's heart with exceeding great joy.

She looked up as he came in, but she did not rise.

"Eh! it's thee, is it?" she remarked. "I thowt it wur toime tha wur comin'. Tha'st not been here fur nigh a month."

"I have been—doing a great deal."

"Aye," she answered. "I suppose so."

She jerked her thumb toward Granny Dixon's basket chair, which stood empty.

"She's takken down," she said. "She wur takken down a week sin', an' a noice toime we're ha'in' nursin' her. None on us can do anything wi' her but mother—she can settle her, thank th' Amoighty."

She rested her sharp little elbows upon her knees and her chin upon both palms and surveyed him with interest.

"Has tha seed him?" she demanded suddenly.

"Who?" he asked.

"Him," with a nod of her head. "Th' furriner as is stayin' at Mester Ffrench's. Yo' mun ha' seen him. He's been theer three days."

"I saw him this evening."

"I thowt tha mun ha' seed him. He coom o' Monday. He coom fro' France. I should na," with a tone of serious speculation,—"I should na ha' thowt she'd ha' had a Frenchman."

She moved her feet and settled herself more conveniently without moving her eyes from his face.

"I dunnot think much o' Frenchmen mysen," she proceeded. "An' neyther does mother, but they say as this is a rich un an' a grand un. She's lived i' France a good bit, an' happen she does na' moind their ways. She's knowed him afore."

"When?" he asked.

"When she wur theer. She lived theer, yo' know."

Yes, he remembered, she had lived there. He said nothing more, only sat watching the little stunted figure and sharp small face with a sense of mild fascination, wondering dully how much she knew and where she had learned it all, and what she would say next. But she gave him no further information—chiefly because she had no more on hand, there being a limit even to her sagacity. She became suddenly interested in himself.

"Yo're as pale as if yo'd had th' whoopin'-cough," she remarked. "What's wrong wi' yo'?"

"I am tired," he answered. "Worn out."

That was true enough, but it did not satisfy her. Her matter of fact and matronly mind arrived at a direct solution of the question.

"Did yo' ivver think," she put it to him, "as she'd ha' yo'?"

He had no answer to give her. He began to turn deathly white about the lips. She surveyed him with increased interest and proceeded:

"Mother an' me's talked it over," she said. "We tak? th' 'Ha'penny Reader,' an' theer wur a tale in it as towd o' one o' th' nobility as wed a workin' chap—an' mother she said as happen she wur loike her an' ud do it, but I said she would na. Th' chap i' th' tale turnt out to be a earl, as ud been kidnapped by th' gypsies, but yo' nivver wur kidnapt, an' she's noan o' th' soft koind. Th' Lady Geraldine wur a difrient mak'. Theer wur na mich i' her to my moind. She wur allus makkin' out as brass wur nowt, an' talkin' about 'humble virchew' as if theer wur nowt loike it. Yo' would na ketch her talkin' i' that road. Mother she'd sit an' cry until th' babby's bishop wur wet through, but I nivver seed nowt to cry about mysen. She getten th' chap i' th' eend, an' he turnt out to be a earl after aw. But I towd mother as marryin' a workin' man wur na i' her loine."

Murdoch burst into a harsh laugh and got up.

"I've been pretty well talked over, it seems," he said. "I didn't know that before."

"Aye," replied Janey, coolly. "We've talked yo' ower a good bit. Are yo' goin'?"

"Yes," he answered, "I am going."

He went out with an uncertain movement, leaving the door open behind him. As he descended the steps, the light from the room, slanting out into the darkness, struck athwart a face, the body pertaining to which seemed to be leaning against the palings, grasping them with both hands. It was the face of Mr. Briarley, who regarded him with a mingled expression of anxiety and desire to propitiate.

"Is it yo'?" he whispered, as Murdoch neared him.

"Yes," he was answered, somewhat shortly.

Mr. Briarley put out a hand and plucked him by the sleeve.

"I've been waitin' fur yo'," he said in a sonorous whisper which only failed to penetrate the innermost recesses of the dwelling through some miracle.

Murdoch turned out of the gate.

"Why?" he asked.

Mr. Briarley glanced toward the house uneasily, and also up and down the road.

"Le's get out o' th' way a bit," he remarked.

Murdoch walked on, and he shuffled a few paces behind him. When they got well into the shadow of the hedge, he stopped. Suddenly he dropped upon his knees and crawling through a very small gap into the field behind, remained there for a few seconds; then he re-appeared panting.

"Theer's no one theer," he said. "I would na ha' risked theer bein' one on 'em lyin' under th' hedge."

"One of whom?" Murdoch inquired.

"I did na say who," he answered.

When he stood on his feet again, he took his companion by the button.

"Theer's a friend o' moine," he said, "as ha' sent a messidge to yo'. This here's it—'Look out!'"

"What does it mean?" Murdoch asked. "Speak more plainly."

Mr. Briarley became evidently disturbed.

"Nay," he said, "that theer's plain enow fur me. It ud do my business i' quick toime if I——"

He stopped and glanced about him again, and then, without warning, threw himself, so to speak, on Murdoch's shoulder and began to pour a flood of whispers into his ear.

"Theer wur a chap as were a foo'," he said, "an' he was drawed into bein' a bigger foo' than common. It wur him as getten yo' i' trouble wi' th' stroikers. He did na mean no ill, an'—an' he ses, 'I'll tell him to look out. I'll run th' risk.' He knowed what wur goin' on, an' he ses, 'I'll tell him to look out.'"

"Who was he?" Murdoch interposed.

Mr. Briarley fell back a pace, perspiring profusely, and dabbing at his forehead with his cap.

"He—he wur a friend o' moine," he stammered,—"a friend o' moine as has getten a way o' gettin' hissen i' trouble, an' he ses, 'I'll tell him to look out.'"

"Tell him from me," said Murdoch, "that I am not afraid of anything that may happen."

It was a rash speech, but was not so defiant as it sounded. His only feeling was one of cold carelessness. He wanted to get free and go away and end his night in his silent room at home. But Mr. Briarley kept up with him, edging toward him apologetically as he walked.

"Yo're set agen th' chap fur bein' a foo'," he persisted, breathlessly, "an' I dunnot blame yo'. He's set agen hissen. He's a misforchnit chap as is allus i' trouble. It's set heavy on him, an' ses he, 'I'll tell him to look out'."

At a turn into a by-lane he stopped.

"I'll go this road," he said, "an' I'll tell him as I've done it."

CHAPTER XLI. "IT HAS ALL BEEN A LIE."

In a week's time Saint Méran had become a distinct element in the social atmosphere of Broxton and vicinity. He fell into his place at Rachel Ffrench's side with the naturalness of a man who felt he had some claim upon his position. He was her father's guest; they had seen a great deal of each other abroad. Any woman might have felt his well-bred homage a delicate compliment. He was received as an agreeable addition to society; he attended her upon all occasions. From the window of his work-room Murdoch saw him drive by with her in her carriage, saw him drop into the bank for a friendly chat with Ffrench, who regarded him with a mixture of nervousness and admiration.

Haworth, having gone away again, had not heard of him. Of late the Works had seen little of its master. He made journeys hither and hither, and on his return from such journeys invariably kept the place in hot water. He drove the work on and tyrannized over the hands from foremen to puddlers. At such times there was mysterious and covert rebellion and some sharp guessing as to what was going on, but it generally ended in this. Upon the whole the men were used to being bullied, and some of them worked the better for it.

Murdoch went about his work as usual, though there was not a decent man on the place who did not gradually awaken to the fact that some singular change was at work upon him. He concentrated all his mental powers upon what he had to do during work hours, and so held himself in check, but he spent all his leisure in a kind of apathy, sitting in his cell at his work-table in his old posture, his forehead supported by his hands, his fingers locked in his tumbled hair. Sometimes he was seized with fits of nervous trembling which left him weak. When he left home in the morning he did not return until night and he ate no midday meal.

As yet he was only drifting here and there; he had arrived at no conclusions; he did not believe in his own reasoning; the first blow had simply stunned him. A man who had been less reserved and who had begun upon a fair foundation of common knowledge would have understood; he understood nothing but his passion, his past rapture, and that a mysterious shock had fallen upon him.

He lived in this way for more than a week, and then he roused himself to make a struggle. One bright, sunny day, after sitting dumbly for half an hour or so, he staggered to his feet and took up his hat.

"I'll—try—again," he said, mechanically. "I'll try again. I don't know what it means. It may have been my fault. I don't think it was—but it may have been. Perhaps I expected too much." And he went out.

After he had been absent some minutes, Ffrench came in from the bank. He had been having a hard morning of it. The few apparently unimportant indiscretions in the way of private speculation of which he had been guilty were beginning to present themselves in divers unpleasant forms, and to assume an air of importance he had not believed possible. His best ventures had failed him, and things which he was extremely anxious to keep from Haworth's ears were assuming a shape which would render it difficult to manage them privately. He was badgered and baited on all sides, and naturally began to see his own folly. His greatest fear was not so much that he should lose the money he had risked as that Haworth should discover his luckless weakness and confront and crush him with it. As he stood in fear of his daughter, so he stood in fear of Haworth; but his dread of Haworth was, perhaps, the stronger feeling of the two. His very refinement added to it. Having gained the object of his ambition, he had found it not exactly what he had pictured it. Haworth had not spared him; the very hands had derided his enthusiastic and strenuous efforts; he had secretly felt that his position was ridiculous, and provocative of satire among the unscientific herd. When he had done anything which should have brought him success and helped him to assert himself, it had somehow always failed, and now——.

He sat down in the managerial chair before Haworth's great table, strewn with papers and bills. He had shut the door behind him and was glad to be alone.

"I am extremely unfortunate," he faltered aloud. "I don't know how to account for it." And he glanced about him helplessly. Before the words had fairly left his lips his privacy was broken in upon. The door was flung open and Murdoch came in. He had evidently walked fast, for he was breathing heavily, and he had plainly expected to find the room empty. He looked at Ffrench, sat down and wiped his lips.

"I want you," he began, with labored articulation, "I want you—to tell me—what—I have done."

Ffrench could only stare at him.

"I went to the house," he said, "and asked for her." (He did not say for whom, nor was it necessary that he should. Ffrench understood him perfectly.) "I swear I saw her standing at the window as I went up the path. She had a purple dress on—and a white flower in her hair—and Saint Méran was at her side. Before, the man at the door never waited for me to speak; this time he stood and looked at me. I said, 'I want to see Miss Ffrench;' he answered, 'She is not at home.' 'Not at home,'"—breaking into a rough laugh,—"'not at home' to me!"

He clinched his fist and dashed it against the chair.

"What does it mean?" he cried out. "What does it mean?"

Ffrench quaked.

"I—I don't know," he answered, and his own face gave him the lie.

Murdoch caught his words up and flung them back at him.

"You don't know!" he cried. "Then I will tell you. It means that she has been playing me false from first to last."

Ffrench felt his position becoming weaker and weaker. Here was a state of affairs he had never seen before; here was a madness which concealed nothing, which defied all, which flung all social presuppositions to the winds. He ought to have been able to palter and equivocate, to profess a well-bred surprise and some delicate indignation, to be dignified and subtle; but he was not. He could only sit and wonder what would come next, and feel uncomfortable and alarmed. The thing which came next he had not expected any more than he had expected the rest of the outbreak.

Suddenly a sullen calmness settled upon the young fellow—a calm which spoke of some fierce determination.

"I don't know why I should have broken out like this before you," he said. "Seeing you here when I expected to fight it out alone, surprised me into it. But there is one thing I am going to do. I'll hear the truth from her own lips. When you go home I will go with you. They wont turn me back then, and I'll see her face to face."

"I——" began Ffrench, and then added, completely overwhelmed, "Very—perhaps it would be—be best."

"Best!" echoed Murdoch, with another laugh. "No, it won't be best; it will be worst; but I'll do it for all that."

And he dropped his head upon the arms he had folded on the chair's back, and so sat in a forlorn, comfortless posture, not speaking, not stirring, as if he did not know that there was any presence in the room but his own.

And he kept his word. As Ffrench was going out into the street at dusk he felt a touch on his shoulder, and turning, found Murdoch close behind him.

"I'm ready," he said, "if you are."

When they reached the house, the man who opened the door stared at them blankly, which so irritated Ffrench that he found an excuse for administering a sharp rebuke to him about some trifle.

"They are always making some stupid blunder," he said to Murdoch as they passed upstairs to the drawing-room.

But Murdoch did not hear.

It was one of the occasions on which Rachel Ffrench reached her highest point of beauty. Her black velvet dress was almost severe in its simplicity, and her one ornament was the jewelled star in her high coiffure. M. St. Méran held his place at her side. He received Murdoch with empressement and exhibited much tact and good feeling. But Murdoch would have none of him. He had neither tact nor experience.

His time did not come until the evening was nearly over, and it would never have come if he had not at last forced her to confront him by making his way to her side with a daring which was so novel in him that it would have mastered another woman.

Near her he trembled a little, but he said what he had come to say.

"To-day," he said, "when I called—your servant told me you were not at home."

She paused a moment before answering, but when she did answer he trembled no more.

"That was unfortunate," she said.

"It was not true—I saw you at the window."

She looked him quietly in the face, answering him in two words.

"Did you?"

He turned on his heel and walked away. His brain whirled; he did not know how he got out of the room. He was scarcely conscious of existence until he found himself out-of-doors. He got beyond the gate and into the road, and to the end of the road, but there he stopped and turned back. He went back until he found he was opposite the house again, looking up at the lighted window, he did not know why. A sharp rain was falling, but he did not feel it. He stood staring at the window, mechanically plucking at the leaves on the hedge near him. He scarcely knew whether it was a curse or a sob which fell from his lips and awakened him at last.

"Am I going mad?" he said. "Do men go mad through such things? God forbid! It has all been a lie—a lie—a lie!!"

CHAPTER XLII. "ANOTHER MAN!"

In two days Haworth returned. He came from the station one morning, not having been home. He did not go to the Works, but to the bank and straight into Ffrench's private room.

The look this unhappy gentleman gave him when he saw him was a queer mixture of anxiety, furtive query, and amiably frank welcome,—the frank welcome a very faint element indeed, though it was brought to light by a violent effort. Haworth shut the door and locked it, and then turned upon him, his face black with rage.

"Say summat!" he ground out through his teeth. "Say summat as'll keep me from smashing every bone in your body!"

Ffrench gave him one hopeless glance and wilted into a drooping, weakly protesting, humiliated figure.

"Don't—don't be so severe, Haworth," he said. "I—I——"

"Blast you!" burst in Haworth, pitilessly. "You've ruined me!"

He spoke under his breath. No one in the room beyond could hear a word, but it was a thousand times more terrible than if he had roared at the top of his voice, as was his custom when things went amiss.

"You've ruined me!" he repeated. "You! A chap that's played gentleman manufacturer; a chap I've laughed at; a chap I took in to serve my own ends—ruined me, by——"

"Oh, no, no!" the culprit cried out. "My dear fellow, no! No, no!"

Haworth strode up to him and struck his fist against the table.

"Have I ever told you a word of what was going on?" he demanded.

"No! No!"

"Have I ever let you be aught but what I swore you should be at th' first—a fellow to play second fiddle and do what he was told?"

Ffrench turned pale. A less hard nature would have felt more sympathy for him.

"No," he answered, "you have not," and his chin dropped on his breast.

Haworth shook his fist in his face. He was in a frenzy of rage and despair.

"It's been going from bad to worse for six months," he said; "but you were not up to seeing it stare you in the face. Strikes are the things for trade to thrive on! One place after another gone down and Jem Haworth's stood up. Jem Haworth's outdone 'em all. I've not slept for three month, my lad. I've fought it like a tiger! I've not left a stone unturned. I've held my mouth shut and my eyes open,—aye, and held my breath, too. I've swore every time I saw daylight that I'd hold it out to the end and show 'em all what Haworth was made of, and how he stood when th' nobs went down at the first drive. I'd sooner have hell than what's bound to come now! And it's you that's done it. You've lost me twenty thousand pound—twenty thousand, when ten's worth more to me than a hundred was a twelvemonth since!"

Ffrench quailed like a woman.

"Are—are you going to murder me?" he said. "You look as if you were."

Haworth turned on his heel.

"You're not worth it," he answered, "or I'd do it, by the Lord Harry."

Then he came back to him.

"I've paid enow for what I've never had, by George," he said, with bitter grimness.

"For what you have——" Ffrench began.

Haworth stopped him by flinging himself down in a chair near him—so near that their faces were brought within uncomfortably close range of each other. There was no avoiding his eye.

"You know what," he sneered. "None better."

"I——" Ffrench faltered.

"Blast you!" said Haworth. "You played her like bait to a fish—in your gentleman's fashion."

Ffrench felt a little sick. It was not unnatural that he should. A man of refined instincts likes less than any other man to be confronted brutally with the fact that he has, however delicately, tampered with a coarseness.

Haworth went on.

"You knew how to do it, and you did it—gentleman way. You knew me and you knew I was hard hit and you knew I'd make a big throw. That was between us two, though we never said a word. I'd never give up a thing in my life before and I was mad for her. She knew how to hold me off and gave me plenty to think of. What else had you, my lad? 'Haworth's' didn't want a gentleman; 'Haworth's' didn't want brass, and you'd none to give if it did. It wasn't you who was took in partner; it was what Jem Haworth was aiming at—and has missed, by——"

He got up, and, pushing his chair back, made a stride toward the door. Ffrench was sure he was going away without another word, but he suddenly stopped and turned back.

"I'd sooner take hell than what's comin'," he repeated in a hoarse whisper. "And it's you that's brought it on me; but if I'd got what I aimed at, it might have come and welcome."

Then he went out.

He went across to the Works, and, going into his room, he found Murdoch standing at one of the windows gazing out at something in the street. He was haggard and gaunt and had a vacant look. It occurred to Haworth that some sudden physical ailment had attacked him. He went up to his side.

"What have you found, lad?" he demanded.

The next instant his own eyes discovered what it was. An open carriage was just drawing up before the bank. Rachel Ffrench sat in it, and Saint Méran was with her.

He looked at them a second or so and then looked at Murdoch—at his wretched face and his hollow eyes. An unsavory exclamation burst from him.

"What!" he cried out after it. "There's another man, is there? Is it that?"

"Yes," was Murdoch's monotonous reply. "There's another man."

CHAPTER XLIII. "EVEN."

The same evening M. Saint Méran had the pleasure of meeting a person of whom he had heard much, and in whom he was greatly interested. This person was the master of "Haworth's," who came in after dinner.

If he had found Murdoch a little trying and wearisome, M. Saint Méran found Haworth astounding. He was not at all prepared for him. When he walked into the room as if it were his own, gave a bare half-nod to Ffrench, and carried himself aggressively to Miss Ffrench's side, Saint Méran was transfixed with astonishment. He had heard faint rumors of something like this before, but he never dreamed of seeing it. He retreated within himself and proceeded to study minutely the manners and characteristics of the successful manufacturers of Great Britain.

"He is very large," he said, with soft sarcasm, to Miss Ffrench. "Very large indeed."

"That," replied Miss Ffrench, "is probably the result of the iron trade."

The truth was that he seemed to fill the room. The time had passed when he was ill at ease in the house. Now he was cool to defiance. Ffrench had never found him so embarrassing as he was upon this particular evening. He spoke very little, sitting in his chair silent, with a gloomy and brooding look. When he directed his attention upon any one, it was upon Rachel. The prolonged gaze which he occasionally fixed upon her was one of evil scrutiny, which stirred her usually cool blood not a little. She never failed, however, to meet it with composure. At last she did a daring thing. Under cover of a conversation between her father and Saint Méran, she went to the table at his side and began to turn over the books upon it.

"I think," she said, in an undertone, "that you have something to say to me."

"Aye," he answered, "I have that, and the time'll come when I shall say it, too."

"You think I'm afraid to hear it," she continued. "Follow me into the next room and see."

Then she addressed her father, speaking aloud.

"Your plans for the new bank are in the next room, I believe," she said. "I wish to show them to Mr. Haworth."

"Y—yes," he admitted, somewhat reluctantly. "They are on my table."

She passed through the folding doors and Haworth followed her. She stopped at one of the windows and waited for him to speak, and it was during this moment in which she waited that he saw in her face what he had not seen before—a faint pallor and a change which was not so much a real change as the foreshadowing of one to come. He saw it now because it chanced that the light struck full upon her.

"Now," she said, "say your say. But let me tell you that I shall listen not because I feel a shadow of interest in it, but because I know you thought I shrank from hearing it."

He pushed open the French window and strode on to the terrace.

"Step out here," he said.

She went out.

"This," he said, glancing about him, "this is th' place you stood on th' night you showed yourself to the strikers."

She made no answer.

"It's as good a place as any," he went on. "I'm going to have it out with you," he said, with bitter significance.

Then, for the first time, it struck her that she had overstepped the mark and done a dangerous thing, but she would have borne a great deal sooner than turn back, and so she remained.

"I've stood it a long time," he said, "and now I'm going to reckon up. There's a good bit of reckoning up to be done betwixt you and me, for all you've held me at arm's length."

"I am glad," she put in, "that you acknowledge that I did hold you at arm's length, and that you were not blind to it."

"Oh," he answered, "I wasn't blind to it, no more than you were blind to the other; and from first to last it's been my comfort to remember that you weren't blind to the other—that you knew it as well as I did. I've held to that."

He came close to her.

"When I give up what I'd worked twenty year to get, what did I give it up for? For you. When I took Ffrench in partner, what did I run the risk for? For you. What was to pay me? You."

His close presence in the shadow was so intolerable to her that she could have cried out, but she did not.

"You made a poor bargain," she remarked.

"Aye, a poor bargain; but you were one in it. You bore it in your mind, and you've bore it there from then till now, and I've got a hold on you through it that's worth summat to me, if I never came nigh nor touched you. You knew it, and you let it be. No other chap can pay more for you than Jem Haworth's paid. I've got that to think of."

She made a gesture with her hand.

"I—I—hush!" she cried. "I will not hear it!"

"Stop it, if you can. Call 'em if you want, and let 'em hear—th' new chap and all. You shall hear, if all Broxton comes. I've paid twenty-five year of work and sweat and grime; I've paid 'Haworth's'—for I'm a ruined chap as I stand here; and but for you I'd have got through."

There was a shock in these last words; if they were true the blow would fall on her too.

"What," she faltered,—"what do you mean?"

"Th' strikes begun it," he answered, laconically, "and," with a jerk of his thumb toward the room in which her father sat, "he finished it. He tried some of his gentleman pranks in a quiet way, and he lost money on 'em. He's lost it again and again, and tried to cover it with fresh shifts, and it's 'Haworth's' that must pay for 'em. It'll come sooner or later, and you may make up your mind to it."

"What were you doing?" she demanded, sharply. "You might have known——"

"Aye," he returned, "what was I doing? I used to be a sharp chap enow. I've not been as sharp i' th' last twelvemonth, and he was up to it. He thought it was his own brass, likely—he'd give summat for it as belonged to him."

He came nearer to the light and eyed her over.

"You've had your day," he said. "You've made a worse chap of me than I need have been. You—you lost me a friend; I hadn't counted that in. You've done worse by him than you've done by me. He was th' finer mak' of th' two, and it'll go harder with him. When I came in, he was hanging about the road-side, looking up at the house. He didn't see me, but I saw him. He'll be there many a night, I dare say. I'd be ready to swear he's there now."

"Whom do you mean?"

"I mean—Murdoch!"

The very sound of his own voice seemed to fire him with rage. She saw a look in his eye which caused her to shrink back. But she was too late. He caught her by the arm and dragged her toward him.

A second later when he released her, she staggered to one of the rustic seats and sank crouching into it, hiding her face in the folds of her dress. She had not cried out, however, nor uttered a sound, and he had known she would not.

He stood looking down at her.

"A gentleman wouldn't have done it," he said, hoarsely. "I'm not a gentleman. You've held me off and trampled me under foot. That'll leave us a bit even."

And he turned on his heel and walked away into the darkness.

CHAPTER XLIV. "WHY DO YOU CRY FOR ME?"

When he said that he had seen Murdoch standing in the road before the house, he had spoken the truth. It was also true that even as they stood upon the terrace he was there still.

He was there every night. Where he slept or when, or if at all, his mother and Christian did not know; they only knew that he never spent a night at home. They barely saw him from day to day. When he came home in the morning and evening, it was to sit at the table, rarely speaking, scarcely tasting food, only drinking greedily the cup of strong coffee Christian always had in readiness for him. The girl was very good to him in these days. She watched him in terror of his unnatural mood. He hardly seemed to see them when they were in the room with him; his eyes were hollow and burning bright; he grew thin and narrow-chested and stooped; his hands were unsteady when he lifted anything.

When she was alone, Christian said to herself again and again:

"He will die. There is no help for it. He will die—or worse."

One morning she came down to find him lying on the sofa with closed eyes and such a deathly face that she almost cried out aloud. But she restrained herself and went into the kitchen as if to perform her usual tasks. Not long afterward she returned carrying a little tray with a cup of hot coffee upon it.

"Will you drink this for me?" she said to him.

He opened his eyes a little impatiently, but he sat up and drank it.

"It's very good," he said, as he fell back again into his old position, "but you mustn't put yourself to trouble for me."

Afterward the coffee was always ready for him when he came in, and he got into the habit of drinking it mechanically.

The books he had been accustomed to pore over at every leisure moment lay unopened. He neither touched nor looked at them.

The two women tried to live their lives as if nothing were happening. They studiously avoided questioning or appearing to observe him.

"We must not let him think that we talk of him," Christian said.

She showed a wonderful gentleness and tact. Until long afterward, Mrs. Murdoch scarcely knew what support and comfort she had in her. Her past life had planted in her a readiness to despair.

"He is like his father," she said once. "He was like him as a child. He is very trusting and faithful, but when his belief is gone it is all over. He has given up as his father did before he died. He will not try to live."

He did not try to live, but he did not think of death. He was too full of other morbid thoughts. He could not follow any idea far. A thousand of them came and went, and in the end were as nothing.

"Why," he kept saying to himself weakly and wearily,—"why was it? What had I done? It was a strange thing to choose me out of so many. I was hardly worth it. To have chosen another man would have served her better."

He did not know how the days passed at the Works. The men began to gaze at him askance and mutter when he went by.

"Th' feyther went daft," they said. "Is this chap goin' th' same way?"

It was only the look of his face which made them say so. He got through his work one way or another. But the days were his dread. The nights, strange and dreadful enough, were better than the broad daylight, with the scores of hands about him and the clangor of hammers and whir of machinery. He fell into the habit of going to the engine-room and standing staring at the engine, fascinated by it. Once he drew nearer and nearer with such a look in his eye that Floxham began to regard him stealthily. He went closer, pace by pace, and at last made a step which brought a shout from Floxham, who sprang upon him and tore him away.

"What art at, tha foo'?" he yelled. "Does tha want to go whoam on a shutter?"

Wakening, with a long breath, he said:

"I forgot, that was it. I was thinking of another thing."

The time came at length when he had altered so that when he went out his mother and Christian often sat up together half the night trembling with a fear neither of them would have put into words. As they sat trying to talk, each would glance at the other stealthily, and when their eyes met, each would start as if with some guilty thought.

On one of the worst and most dreadful of nights, Christian suddenly rose from her seat, crossed the hearth and threw herself upon her knees before her companion.

"I am going out," she said. "Don't—don't try to keep me."

"It is midnight," said Mrs. Murdoch, "and—you don't know where to go."

"Yes," the girl returned, "I do. For God's sake, let me go! I cannot bear it."

The woman gave her a long look, and then said a strange and cruel thing.

"You had better stay where you are. It is not you he wants."

"No," she said bitterly, "it is not I he wants; but I can find him and make sure—that—he will come back. And then you will go to sleep." She left her in spite of her efforts to detain her. She was utterly fearless, and went into the night as if there was no such thing as peril on earth.

She did know where to go and went there. Murdoch was standing opposite the house in which Rachel Ffrench slept. She went to him and put her hand on his arm.

"What are you doing here?" she said, in a low voice. He turned and gave her a cold, vacant look. He did not seem at all surprised at finding her dark, beautiful young face at his very shoulder.

"I don't know. Can you tell me?"

"We have been waiting for you," she said. "We cannot rest when you are away."

"Do you want me to go home and go to bed decently and sleep?" he said. "Do you suppose I would not, if I could? I always start from here and come back here. I say to myself, 'It will take me an hour to reach the place where I can see her window.' It is something to hold one's mind in check with. This rambling—and—and forgetting what one has meant to think about is a terrible thing."

"Come home with me," she said. "We will not talk. You can lie on the sofa and we will go away. I want your mother to sleep."

Something in her presence began to influence him to a saner mood.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "It is midnight."

"I am not afraid. I could not bear to stay in the house. We sit there——"

An idea seemed to strike him suddenly. He stopped her and asked deliberately:

"Did you come because you thought I might do myself harm?"

She would not answer, and after waiting a second or so he went on slowly:

"I have thought I might myself—sometimes, but never for long. You have no need to fear. I am always stopped by the thought that—perhaps—it is not worth it after all. When things look clearer, I shall get over it. Yes—I think I shall get over it—though now there seems to be no end. But—some day—it will come—and I shall get over it. Don't be afraid that I shall do myself harm. If I am not killed—before the end comes—I shall not kill myself. I shall know it was not worth it after all."

The tears had been running down her cheeks as she stood, but she bit her lip and forced herself to breathe evenly, so that he might not find her out. But just then, as he moved, a great drop fell upon the back of his hand. He stopped and began to tremble.

"Good heavens!" he cried. "You are crying. Why do you cry for me?"

"Because I cannot help it," she said in a half-whisper. "I do not cry often. I never cried for any one before."

"I'll take you home," he said, moving slowly along at her side. "Don't cry."