Haworth's

CHAPTER XLV. "IT IS WORSE THAN I THOUGHT."

A week or so later Saint Méran went away. Ffrench informed his partner of this fact with a secret hope of its producing upon him a somewhat softening effect. But Haworth received the statement with coolness.

"He'll come back again," he said. "Let him alone for that."

The general impression was that he would return. The opinion most popular in the more humble walks of Broxton society was that he had gone "to get hissen ready an' ha' th' papers drawed up," and that he would appear some fine day with an imposing retinue, settle an enormous fortune upon Miss Ffrench, and, having been united to her with due grandeur and solemnity, would disappear with her to indefinitely "furrin" parts.

There seemed to be little change in Rachel Ffrench's life and manner, however. She began to pay rather more strict attention to her social duties, and consequently went out oftener. This might possibly be attributed to the fact that remaining in-doors was somewhat dull. Haworth and Murdoch came no more, and after Saint Méran's departure a sort of silence seemed to fall upon the house. Ffrench himself felt it when he came in at night, and was naturally restless under it. Perhaps Miss Ffrench felt it, too, though she did not say so.

One morning, Janey Briarley, sitting nursing the baby in the door-way of the cottage, glanced upward from her somewhat arduous task to find a tall and graceful figure standing before her in the sun. She had been too busily engaged to hear footsteps, and there had been no sound of carriage-wheels, so the visitor had come upon her entirely unawares.

It cannot be said she received her graciously. Her whilom admiration had been much tempered by sharp distrust very early in her acquaintance with its object.

"Art tha coomin' in?" she asked unceremoniously.

"Yes," said Miss Ffrench, "I am coming in."

Janey got up and made room for her to pass, and when she had passed, gave her a chair, very much overweighted by the baby as she did so.

"Does tha want to see mother?"

"If your mother is busy, you will serve every purpose. The housekeeper told me that Mrs. Dixon was ill, and as I was passing I thought I would come in."

Janey's utter disbelief in this explanation was a sentiment not easily concealed, even by an adept in controlling facial expression, and she was not an adept. But Miss Ffrench was not at all embarrassed by any demonstration of a lack of faith which she might have perceived. When Janey resumed her seat, she broke the silence by an entirely unexpected observation. She touched the baby delicately with the point of her parasol—very delicately indeed.

"I suppose," she remarked, "that this is an extremely handsome child."

This with the air of one inquiring for information.

"Nay, he is na," retorted Janey unrelentingly. "He's good enow, but he nivver wur hurt wi' good looks. None on 'em wur, an' he's fou'est o' th' lot. I should think tha could see that fur thysen."

"Oh," replied Miss Ffrench, "then I suppose I am wrong. My idea was that at that age children all looked alike."

"Loike him?" said Janey dryly. "Did tha think as tha did?"

As the young Briarley in question was of a stolid and unornamental type, uncertain of feature and noticeable chiefly for a large and unusually bald head of extraordinary phrenological development, this gave the matter an entirely novel aspect.

"Perhaps," said Miss Ffrench, "I scarcely regarded it from that point of view."

Then she changed the subject.

"How is Mrs. Dixon?" she inquired.

"She's neyther better nor worse," was the answer, "an' a mort o' trouble."

"That is unfortunate. Who cares for her?"

"Mother. She's th' on'y one as can do owt wi' her."

"Is there no one else she has a fancy for—your father, for instance?" inquired Miss Ffrench.

"She conna bide th' soight o' him, an' he's feart to go nigh her. Th' ony man as she ivver looked at wur Murdoch," answered Janey.

"I think I remember his saying she had made friends with him. Is she as fond of him now?"

"I dunnot know as I could ca' it bein' fond on him. She is na fond o' nobody. But she says he's getten a bit more sense than th' common run."

"It is rather good-natured on his part to come to see her——"

"He does na coom to see her. He has na been nigh th' house fur a month. He's been ill hissen or summat. He's up an' about, but he'd getten a face loike Death th' last toime I seed him. Happen he's goin' off loike his feyther."

"How is that?"

"Did na tha know," with some impatience, "as he went crazy over summat he wur makkin', an' deed 'cause he could na mak' out to finish it? It's th' very thing Murdoch took up hissen an' th' stroikers wur so set ag'in."

"I think I remember. There was a story about the father. Do you—think he is really ill?"

"Murdoch? Aye, I do.—Mak'less noise, Tummos Henry!" (This to the child.)

"That is a great pity. Ah, there is the carriage."

One of her gloves had been lying upon her lap. When she stood up, it dropped. She bent to pick it up, and as she did so something fell tinkling upon the flag floor and rolled under a table. It was one of her rings. Janey brought it back to her.

"It mun ha' been too large fur thee," she said, "or tha'rt gettin' thin. Seems loike tha'rt a bit different to what tha wur," with a glance at her.

"Never mind that," she answered sharply, as she handed her some money. "Give this to your mother."

And she dropped the ring into her purse instead of putting it on again, and went out to her carriage.

Janey stood and watched her.

"She is a bit thinner, or summat," she remarked, "but she need na moind that. It's genteel enow to be thin, an' I dunnot know as it ud hurt her."

Rachel Ffrench went home, and the same afternoon Murdoch came to her for the last time.

He had not intended to come. In his wildest moments he had never thought of going to her again, but as he passed along the road, intending to spend the afternoon in wandering across the country, he looked up at the windows of the house, and a strange fancy seized upon him. He would go in and ask her the question he had asked himself again and again. It did not seem to him at the time a strange thing to do. It looked wonderfully simple and natural in his strained and unnatural mood. He turned in at the gate with only one feeling—that perhaps she would tell him, and then it would be over. She saw him come up the path, and wondered if the man at the door would remember the charge she had given him. It chanced that he did not remember, or that he was thrown off his guard. She heard feet on the stairs in a few seconds, and almost immediately Murdoch was in the room. What she thought when, being brought thus near to him, she saw and recognized the dreadful change in him, God knows. She supported herself with her hand upon the back of her chair as she rose. There was a look in his face almost wolfish. He would not sit down, and in three minutes broke through the barrier of her effort at controlling him. It was impossible for her to control him as she might have controlled another man.

"I have only a few words to say," he said. "I have come to ask you a question. I think that is all—only to ask you a question."

"Will you tell me," he said, "what wrong I have done you?"

She put her other hand on the chair and held it firmly.

"Will you tell me," she said, almost in a whisper, "what wrong I have done you?"

She remained so, looking at him and he at her, with a terrible helplessness, through a moment of dead silence.

She dropped her face upon her hands as she held the chair, and so stood.

He fell back a pace, gazing at her still.

"I have heard of women who fancied themselves injured," he said, "planning to revenge themselves upon the men who had intentionally or unintentionally wounded their pride. I remember such things in books I have read, not in real life, and once or twice the thought has crossed my mind that at some time in the past I might, in my poor ignorance, have presumed—or—blundered in some way to—anger you—and that this has been my punishment. It is only a wild thought, but it was a straw to cling to, and I would rather believe it, wild as it is, than believe that what you have done has been done wantonly. Can it be—is it true?"

"No."

But she did not lift her face.

"It is not?"

"No."

"Then it is worse than I thought."

He said the words slowly and clearly, and they were his last. Having said them, he went away without a backward glance.

CHAPTER XLVI. ONCE AGAIN.

In half an hour's time Murdoch had left Broxton far behind him. He left the open road and rambled across fields and through lanes. The people in the farm-houses, who knew him, saw him pass looking straight before him and walking steadily like a man with an end in view.

His mind was full of one purpose—the determination to control himself and keep his brain clear.

"Now," he said, "let me think it over—now let me look at it in cold blood."

The effort he made was something gigantic; it was a matter of physical as well as mental force. He had wavered and been vague long enough. Now the time had come to rouse himself through sheer power of will, or give up the reins and drift with the current, a lost man.

At dusk he reached Dillup, and roamed about the streets, half conscious of his surroundings. The Saturday-night shopping was going on, and squalid women hurrying past him with their baskets on their arms glanced up, wondering at his dark face and preoccupied air.

"He's noan Dillup," they said; one good woman going so far as to add that "she did na loike th' looks on him neyther," with various observations upon the moral character of foreigners in general. He saw nothing of the sensation he created, however. He rambled about erratically until he felt the need of rest, and then went into a clean little shop and bought some simple food and ate it sitting upon the tall stool before the counter, watched by the stout, white-aproned matron in charge.

"Tha looks poorly, mester," she said, as she handed him his change.

He started a little on hearing her voice, but recovered himself readily.

"Oh no," he said. "I'm right enough, I think. I'm an American, and I suppose we are rather a gaunt-looking lot as a rule."

"'Merikin, art tha?" she replied. "Well to be sure! Happen that's it" (good naturedly). "I've allus heerd they wur a poor color. 'Merikin! Well—sure-ly!"

The fact of his being an American seemed to impress her deeply. She received his thanks (she was not often thanked by her customers) as a mysterious though not disagreeable result of his nationality, and as he closed the door after him he heard, as an accompaniment to the tinkling of the shop-bell, her amiably surprised ejaculation, "A 'Merikin! Well—sure-ly!"

A few miles from Broxton there was a substantial little stone bridge upon which he had often sat. In passing it again and again it had gradually become a sort of resting place for him. It was at a quiet point of the road, and sitting upon it he had thought out many a problem. When he reached it on his way back he stopped and took his usual seat, looking down into the slow little stream beneath, and resting against the low buttress. He had not come to work out a problem now; he felt that he had worked his problem out in the past six hours.

"It was not worth it," he said. "No—it was not worth it after all."

When he went on his way again he was very tired, and he wondered drearily whether, when he came near the old miserable stopping place, he should not falter and feel the fascination strong upon him again. He had an annoying fear of the mere possibility of such a thing. When he saw the light striking slantwise upon the trees it might draw him toward it as it had done so often before—even in spite of his determination and struggles.

Half a mile above the house a great heat ran over him, and then a deadly chill, but he went on steadily. There was this for him, that for the first time he could think clearly and not lose himself.

He came nearer to it and nearer, and it grew in brightness. He fancied he had never seen it so bright before. He looked up at it and then away. He was glad that having once looked he could turn away; there had been many a night when he could not. Then he was under the shadow of the trees and knew that his dread had been only a fancy, and that he was a saner man than he had thought. And the light was left behind him and he did not look back, but went on.

When he reached home the house was utterly silent. He entered with his latch-key and finding all dark went upstairs noiselessly.

The door of his own room was closed, and when he opened it he found darkness there also. He struck a match and turned on the light. For a moment its sudden glare blinded him, and then he turned involuntarily toward the farther corner of the room. Why he did so, he did not know at the time,—the movement was the result of an uncontrollable impulse,—but after he had looked he knew.

The light shone upon the empty chair in its old place—and upon the table and upon the model standing on it!

He did not utter any exclamation; strangely enough, he did not at first feel any shock or surprise. He advanced toward it slowly. But when at last he stood near it, the shock came. His heart beat as if it would burst.

"What falseness is there in me," he cried, "that I should have forgotten it?"

He was stricken with burning shame. He did not ask himself how it was that it stood there in its place. He thought of nothing but the lack in himself which was so deep a humiliation. Everything else was swept away. He sank into the chair and sat staring at it.

"I had forgotten it," he said,—"forgotten it."

And then he put out his hand and touched and moved it—and drew it toward him.

About an hour afterward he was obliged to go downstairs for something he needed. It was to the sitting-room he went, and when he pushed the door open he found a dim light burning and saw that some one was lying upon the sofa. His first thought was that it was his mother who had waited for him, but it was not she—it was Christian Murdoch, fast asleep with her face upon her arm.

Her hat and gloves were thrown upon the table and she still wore a long gray cloak which was stained and damp about the hem. He saw this as soon as he saw her face, and no sooner saw than he understood.

He went to the sofa and stood a moment looking down at her, and, though he did not speak or stir, she awakened.

She sat up and pushed her cloak aside, and he spoke to her.

"It was you who brought it back," he said.

"Yes," she answered quietly. "I thought that if you saw it in the old place again, you would remember."

"You did not forget it."

"I had nothing else to think of," was her simple reply.

"I must seem a poor sort of fellow to you," he said wearily. "I am a poor sort of fellow."

"No," she said "or I should not have thought it worth while to bring it back."

He glanced down at her dress and then up at her face.

"You had better go upstairs to bed," he said. "The dew has made your dress and cloak damp. Thank you for what you have done."

She got up and turned away.

"Good-night," she said.

"Good-night," he answered, and watched her out of the room.

Then he found what he required and went back to his work; only, more than once as he bent over it, he thought again of the innocent look of her face as it had rested upon her arm while she slept.

CHAPTER XLVII. A FOOTSTEP.

He went out no more at night. From the moment he laid his hand upon the model again he was safer than he knew. Gradually the old fascination re-asserted itself. There were hours of lassitude and weariness to be borne, and moments of unutterable bitterness and disgust for life, in which he had to fight sharp battles against the poorer side of his nature; but always at the worst there was something which made itself a point to fix thought upon. He could force himself to think of this when, if he had had no purpose in view, he would have been a lost man. The keen sense of treachery to his own resolve stung him, but it was a spur after all. The strength of the reaction had its physical effect upon him, and sometimes he suddenly found himself weak to exhaustion,—so weak that any exertion was impossible, and he was obliged to leave his post at the Works and return home for rest. At such times he lay for hours upon the narrow sofa in the dull little room, as his father had done long before, and wore a look so like him that, one day, his mother coming into the room not knowing he was there, cried out aloud and staggered backward, clutching at her breast.

Her manner toward him softened greatly in these days. It was more what it had been in his boyhood, when she had watched over him with patient and unfailing fondness. Once he awakened to see her standing a few paces from his side, seeming to have been there some moments.

"If—I have seemed hard to you in your trouble," she said, "forgive me."

She spoke without any prelude, and did not seem to expect any answer, turning away and going about her work at once, but he felt that he need feel restless and chilled in her presence no longer.

He did not pursue his task at home, but took the model down to the Works and found a place for it in his little work-cell.

The day he did so he was favored by a visit from Haworth. It was the first since the rupture between them. Since then they had worked day after day with only the door between them, they had known each other's incomings and outgoings, but had been as far apart as if a world separated them. Haworth had known more of Murdoch than Murdoch had known of him. No change in him had escaped his eye. He had seen him struggle and reach his climax at last. He had jeered at him as a poor enough fellow with fine, white-livered fancies, and a woman's way of bearing himself. He had raged at and cursed him, and now and then had been lost in wonder at him, but he had never fathomed him from first to last.

But within the last few weeks his mood had changed,—slowly, it is true, but it had changed. His bearing had changed, too. Murdoch himself gradually awakened to a recognition of this fact, in no small wonder. He was less dogged and aggressive, and showed less ill-will.

That he should appear suddenly, almost in his old way, was a somewhat startling state of affairs, but he crossed the threshold coolly.

He sat down and folded his arms on the table.

"You brought summat down with you this morning," he said. "What was it?"

Murdoch pointed to the wooden case, which stood on a shelf a few feet from him.

"It was that," he answered.

"That!" he repeated. "What! You're at work at it again, are you?"

"Yes."

"Well, look sharp after it, that's all. There's a grudge bore again it."

"I know that," Murdoch answered, "to my cost. I brought it here because I thought it would be safer."

"Aye, it'll be safer. Take my advice and keep it close, and work at it at nights, when th' place is quiet. There's a key as'll let you in." And he flung a key down upon the table.

Murdoch picked it up mechanically. He felt as if he could scarcely be awake. It seemed as if the man must have brought his purpose into the room with him, having thought it over beforehand. His manner by no means disarmed the suspicion.

"It is the favor I should have asked, if I had thought——"

Haworth left his chair.

"There's th' key," he said, abruptly. "Use it. No other chap would get it."

He went back to his own room, and Murdoch was left to his surprise.

He finished his work for the day, and went home, remaining there until night came on. Then he went back to the Works, having first told Christian of his purpose.

"I am going to the Works," he said. "I may be there all night. Don't wait for me, or feel anxious."

When the great building loomed up before him in the dark, his mind recalled instantly the night he had entered it before, attracted by the light in the window. There was no light about it now but that shut in the lantern he carried. The immensity and dead stillness would have been a trying thing for many a man to encounter, but as he relocked the door and made his way to his den, he thought of them only from one point of view.

"It is the silence of the grave," he said. "A man can concentrate himself upon his work as if there was not a human breath stirring within a mile of him."

Somehow, even his room wore a look which seemed to belong to the silence of night—a look he felt he had not seen before. He marked it with a vague sense of mystery when he set his lantern down upon the table, turning the light upon the spot on which his work would stand.

Then he took down the case and opened it and removed the model.

"It will not be forgotten again," he thought aloud. "If it is to be finished, it will be finished here."

Half the night passed before he returned home. When he did so he went to his room and slept heavily until daylight. He had never slept as he slept in these nights,—heavy dreamless sleep, from which, at first, he used to awaken with a start and a perfectly blank sense of loss and dread, but which became, at last, unbroken.

Night after night found him at his labor. It grew upon him; he longed for it through the day; he could not have broken from it if he would.

Once, as he sat at his table, he fancied that he heard a lock click and afterward a stealthy footstep. It was a sound so faint and indistinct that his disbelief in its reality was immediate; but he got up, taking his lantern with him, and went out to look at the entrance passage. It was empty and dark, and the door was shut and locked as he had left it. He went back to his work little disturbed. He had not really expected to find the traces of any presence in the place, but he had felt it best to make the matter safe.

Perhaps the fact that once or twice on other nights the same light, indefinite sound fell upon his ear again, made him feel rather more secure than otherwise. Having examined the place again and with the same result, it troubled him no more. He set it down to some ordinary material cause.

After his first visit Haworth came into his room often. Why he came Murdoch did not understand very clearly. He did not come to talk; sometimes he scarcely spoke at all. He was moody and abstracted. He went about the place wearing a hard and reckless look, utterly unlike any roughness and hardness he had shown before. The hands who had cared the least for his not altogether ill-natured tempests in days gone by shrank or were restive before him now. He drove all before him or passed through the rooms sullenly. It was plain to see that he was not the man he had been—that he had even lost strength, and was suddenly worn and broken, though neither flesh nor color had failed him.

Among those who had made a lion of him he was more popular than ever. The fact that he had held out against ill luck when so many had gone down, was constantly quoted. The strikes which had kept up an uneven but prolonged struggle had been the ruin of many a manufacturer who had thought he could battle any storm. "Haworth's" had held its own and weathered the worst.

This was what the county potentates were fond of saying upon all occasions,—particularly when they wanted Haworth to dine with them at their houses. He used to accept their invitations and then go and sit at their dinner-tables with a sardonic face. His humor, it was remarked with some regret, was often of a sardonic kind. Occasionally he laughed at the wrong time, and his jokes were not always easy to smile under. It was also remarked that Mr. Ffrench scarcely seemed comfortable upon these festive occasions. Of late he had not been in the enjoyment of good health. He explained that he suffered from nervous headaches and depression. His refined, well-molded face had become rather thin and fatigued-looking. He had lost his effusive eloquence. He often sat silent and started nervously when spoken to, but he did not eschew society at all, always going out upon any state occasion when his partner was to be a feature of the feast. Once upon such an occasion he had said privately and with some plaintiveness to Haworth:

"I don't think I can go to-night, my dear fellow. I really don't feel quite equal to it."

"Blast you!" said Haworth, dispensing with social codes. "You'll go whether you're up to it or not. We'll keep it up to the end. It'll be over soon enough."

He evinced interest in the model, in his visits to the work-room, which seemed a little singular to Murdoch. He asked questions about it, and more than once repeated his caution concerning its being "kept close."

"I've got it into my head that you'll finish it some of these days," he said once, "if naught happens to it or you."

CHAPTER XLVIII. FINISHED.

One night, Murdoch, on leaving the house, said to Christian:

"Don't expect me until morning. I may not be back until then. I think I shall work all night."

She did not ask him why. For several days she had seen that a singular mood was upon him, that he was restless. Sometimes, when he met her eye unexpectedly, he started and colored and turned away, as if he was a little afraid. She stood upon the step and watched him until he disappeared in the darkness, and then shut the door and went in to his mother.

A quarter of an hour afterward he entered his work-room, and shut himself in and brought out the model.

He sat looking at it a moment, and then stretched forth his hand to touch it. Suddenly he drew it back and let it fall heavily upon the table. "Good Heavens!" he cried. "Did he ever feel so near as this, and then fail?" The shock was almost unbearable. "Are there to be two of us?" he said. "Was not one enough?" But he put forth his hand again a minute later, though his heart beat like a trip-hammer. "It rests with me to prove it," he said—"with me!"

As he worked, the dead silence about him seemed to become more intense. His own breathing was a distinct sound, light as it was; the accidental dropping of a tool upon the table was a jar upon him; the tolling of the church bell at midnight was unbearable. He even took out his watch and stopped it. But at length he knew neither sound nor stillness; he forgot both.

It had been a dark night, but the morning rose bright and clear. The sun, streaming in at the one window, fell upon the model, pushed far back upon the table, and on Murdoch himself, sitting with his forehead resting upon his hands. He had been sitting thus some time—he did not know how long. He had laid his last tool down before the first streak of pink had struck across the gray sky. He was tired and chill with the morning air, but he had not thought of going home yet, or even quite recognized that the night was past. His lantern still burned beside him. He was roused at last by a sound in the outer room. The gates had not been unlocked nor the bell rung, but some one had come in. The next moment Haworth opened the door and stood in the threshold, looking in on him.

"You've been here all night," he said.

Haworth sat down near him with a dogged face.

"Nay," he replied, "nor me either."

They sat and stared at each other for a moment in silence. Then Murdoch drew a long, wearied breath.

"But it is done," he said, "nevertheless."

After that he got up and began to make his preparations to go home while Haworth sat and watched him.

"I shall want to go away," he said. "When I come back I shall know what the result is to be."

"Start to-morrow morning," said Haworth. "And keep close. By the time you come back——"

He stopped and left his chair, and the bell which called the hands to work began its hurried clanging. At the door he paused.

"When shall you take it away?" he asked.

"To-night," Murdoch answered. "After dark."

At home he only told them one thing—that in the morning he was going to London and did not know when he should return. He did not go to the Works during the day, but remained at home trying to rest. But he could not sleep and the day seemed to lag heavily. In the afternoon he left the sofa on which he had lain through the morning and went out. He walked slowly through the town and at last turned down the lane which led to the Briarley's cottage. He felt as if there would be a sort of relief to the tenseness of his mood in a brief interview with Janey. When he went into the house, Mr. Briarley was seated in Mrs. Dixon's chair unscientifically balancing his latest-born upon his knee. His aspect was grave and absorbed; he was heated and disheveled with violent exertion; the knot of his blue cotton neckerchief had twisted itself under his right ear in a painfully suggestive manner. Under some stress of circumstances he had been suddenly pressed into service, and his mode of placating his offspring was at once unprofessional and productive of frantic excitement.

But the moment he caught sight of Murdoch an alarming change came upon him. His eyes opened to their fullest extent, his jaw fell and the color died out of his face. He rose hurriedly, dropped the youngest Briarley into his chair and darted out of the house, in such trepidation that his feet slipped under him when he reached the lower step, where he fell with a loud clatter of wooden clogs, scrambling up again with haste and difficulty and disappearing at once.

Attracted by the disturbance, Janey darted in from the inner room barely in time to rescue the deserted young Briarley.

"Wheer's he gone?" she demanded, signifying her father. "I towd her he wur na fit to be trusted! Wheer's he gone?"

"I don't know," Murdoch answered. "I think he ran away because he saw me. What is the trouble?"

"Nay, dunnot ax me! We canna mak' him out, neyther mother nor me. He's been settin' i' th' house fur three days, as if he wur feart to stir out—settin' by th' fire an' shakin' his yed, an' cryin' ivvery now and then. An' here's her i' th' back room to wait on. A noice toime this is fur him to pick to go off in. He mowt ha' waited till she wur done wi'."

As conversation naturally could not flourish under these circumstances, after a few minutes Murdoch took his leave.

It seemed that he had not yet done with Mr. Briarley. Passing through the gate, he caught sight of a forlorn figure seated upon the road-side about twenty yards before him, wearing a fustian jacket and a blue neck-cloth knotted under the ear. As he approached, Mr. Briarley looked up, keeping his eyes fixed upon him in a despairing gaze. He did not remove his glance at all, in fact, until Murdoch was within ten feet of him, when, for some entirely inexplicable reason, he rose hurriedly and passed to the other side of the road, and at a distance of some yards ahead sat down, and stared wildly at him again. This singular course he pursued until they had reached the end of the lane, where he sat and watched Murdoch out of sight.

"I thowt," he said, breathing with extreme shortness, "as he ha' done fur me. It wur a wonder as he did na. If I'd coom nigh him or he'd coom nigh me, they'd ha' swore it wur me as did it an's gone accordin', if luck went ag'in 'em."

Then a sudden panic seemed to seize him. He pulled off his cap, and, holding it in both hands, stared into it as if in desperate protest against fate. A large tear fell into the crown, and then another and another. "I canna help it," he said, in a loud and sepulchral whisper. "Look out! Look out!"

And then, probably feeling that even in this he might be committing himself fatally, he got up, glanced fearfully about him, and scuttled away.

CHAPTER XLIX. "IF AUGHT'S FOR ME, REMEMBER IT."

Before he left the house at night, Murdoch had a brief interview with his mother.

"I am going to London as he went," he said,—"on the same errand. The end may be what it was before. I have felt very sure—but he was sure too."

"Yes," the woman answered, "he was very sure."

"I don't ask you to trust it—or me," he said. "He gave a life to it. I have not given a year, and he was the better man, a thousand-fold. I," he said, with a shadow falling on his face, "have not proved myself as he did. He never faltered from the first."

"No," she said. "Would to God he had!"

But when he went, she followed him to the door and said the words she had refused him when he had first told her he had taken the burden upon his shoulders.

"God speed you!" she said. "I will try to believe."

His plan was to go to his room, pack his case securely, and then carry it with him to the station in time to meet the late train he had decided on taking.

He let himself into the Works as usual, and found his way along the passage in the darkness, though he carried his lantern. He knew his way so well that he did not need it there. But when he reached Haworth's room and put out his hand to open the door, he stopped. His touch met no resistance, for the door was wide open. The discovery was so sharp a shock to him that for a few seconds he remained motionless. But he recovered himself in a second or so more. It might have been the result of carelessness, after all; so he turned on his light and went into his cell and began his task. It did not take him long. When he had finished, the wooden case was simply a solid square brown parcel which might have contained anything. He glanced at his watch and sat down a minute or so.

"There is no use in going too early," he said. And so he waited a little, thinking mechanically of the silence inside and the darkness out, and of the journey which lay before him. But at last he got up again and took his burden by the cord he had fastened about it.

"Now," he said, "it is time."

At the very moment the words left his lips there was a sound outside the door, and a rush upon him; he was seized by the throat, flung backward into the chair he had left, and held there. He made no outcry. His first thought when he found himself clutched and overpowered was an incongruous one of Briarley sitting on the road-side and looking up at him in panic-stricken appeal. He understood in a flash what his terror had meant.

The fellow who held him by the collar—there were three of them, and one was Reddy—shook him roughly.

"Wheer is it?" he said. "You know whatten we've coom for, my lad."

Murdoch was conscious of a little chill which passed over him, but otherwise he could only wonder at his own lack of excitement. No better place to finish a man than such a one as this at dead of night, and there was not one of the three who had not evil in his eye; but he spoke without a tremor in his voice,—with the calmness of being utterly without stay or help.

"Yes, I suppose I know," he said. "You came to me for it before. What are you going to do with it?"

"Smash it to h——," said one, concisely, "an' thee too."

It was not a pleasant thing to hear by the half light of a lantern in a place so deadly still. Murdoch felt the little chill again, but he remembered that after all he had one slender chance if he could make them listen.

"You are making a blunder," he began.

Reddy stopped him by addressing his comrades.

"What art tha stondin' hearkenin' to him fur?" he demanded. "Smack him i' th' mouth an' stop him."

Murdoch gave a lurch forward which it gave his captor some trouble to restrain. He turned dangerously white and his eye blazed.

"If you do, you devil," he panted, "I'll murder you."

"Wheer is th' thing we coom fur?" said the first man. And then he caught sight of the package, which had fallen upon the floor.

"Happen it's i' theer," he suggested. "Oppen it, chaps."

Then all at once Murdoch's calmness was gone. He shook in their grasp.

"For God's sake!" he cried, "don't touch it! Don't do it a harm! It's a mistake. It has nothing to do with your trade. It would be no hurt to you if it were known to the whole world. For God's sake, believe me!"

"We've heerd a different mak' o' tale fro' that," said Reddy, laughing.

"It's a lie—a lie! Who told it?"

"Jem Haworth," he was answered. "Jem Haworth, as it wur made fur."

He began to struggle with all his strength. He cried out aloud and sprang up and broke loose and fought with the force of madness.

"You shall pay for it," he shrieked, and three to one as they were, he held them for a moment at bay.

"Gi' him th' knob-stick!" cried one. "At him wi' it!"

It was Reddy who aimed the blow at him,—a blow that would have laid him a dead man among them,—but it never fell, for he sprang forward with a mighty effort and struck the bludgeon upward, and as it fell with a crash at the opposite side of the room, they heard, even above the tumult of their struggle, a rush of heavy feet, a voice every man among them knew, and the sound they most dreaded—the sharp report of a pistol.

He no sooner heard his voice than he forgot his weak wonder at himself in a stronger wonder at him. He was ashen pale and a tremor shook him as he spoke.

"Lie still and rest thee," he repeated, and he touched his head with an approach to gentleness.

"They thought there was more than me," he said. "And they're not fond of powder and lead. They're better used to knobsticks and vitriol in the dark."

"They meant to murder me," said Murdoch.

"Aye, make sure o' that. They weren't for play. They've had their minds on this for a month or two. If I'd been a minute later——"

He did not finish. A queer spasm of the throat stopped him.

He rose the next instant and struck a match and turned the gas on to full blaze.

"Let's have light," he said. "Theer's a look about th' place I can't stand."

His eyes were blood-shot, his face looked gray and deeply lined and his lips were parched. There was a new haggardness upon him and he was conscious of it and tried to bear it down with his old bravado.

"They'll not come back," he said. "They've had enough for to-night. If they'd known I was alone they'd have made a stand for it. They think they were in luck to get off."

He came back and sat down.

"They laid their plans better than I thought," he added. "They got over me for once, devil take 'em. How art tha now, lad?"

Murdoch made the effort to rise and succeeded, though he was not very strong upon his feet, and sank into a chair feeling a little irritated at his own weakness.

"Giddy," he answered, "and a trifle faint. It's a queer business. I went down as if I'd been shot. I have an hour and a half to steady myself before the next train comes in. Let me make the best of it."

"You'll go to-night?" said Haworth.

"There's a stronger reason than ever that I should go," he answered. "Let me get it out of the way and safe, for heaven's sake!"

Haworth squared his arms upon the table and leaned on them.

"Then," he said, "I've got an hour and a half to make a clean breast of it."

He said it almost with a swagger, and yet his voice was hoarse, and his coolness a miserable pretense.

"Ask me," he said, "how I came here!"

And not waiting for a reply even while Murdoch gazed at him bewildered, he answered the question himself.

"I come," he said, "for a good reason,—for the same reason that's brought me here every night you've been at work."

Murdoch repeated his last words mechanically. He was not quite sure the man was himself.

"Every night I've been at work?"

"Aye, every one on 'em! There's not been a night I've not been nigh you and ready."

A memory flashed across Murdoch's mind with startling force.

"It was you I heard come in?" he cried. "It was not fancy."

"Aye, it was me."

There was a moment's silence between them in which Murdoch thought with feverish rapidity.

"It was you," he said with some bitterness at last,—"you who set the plot on foot?"

"Aye, it was me."

"I could have done the job I wanted to do in a quicker way," he went on, after a second's pause, "but that wasn't my humor. I'd a mind to keep out of it myself, and I knew how to set the chaps on as would do it in their own way."

"What do you mean by 'it'?" cried Murdoch. "Were you devil enough to mean to have my blood?"

"Aye,—while I was in the humor,—that and worse."

Murdoch sprang up and began to pace the room. His strength had come back to him with the fierce sense of repulsion which seized him.

"It's a blacker world than I thought," he said. "We were friends once—friends!"

"So we were," he said, hoarsely. "You were the first chap I ever made friends with, and you'll be the last. It's brought no good to either of us."

"It might," returned Murdoch, "if——"

"Let me finish my tale," he said, even doggedly. "I said to myself before I came you should hear it. I swore I'd stop at naught, and I kept my word. I sowed a seed here and there, and th' soil was just right for it. They were in the mood to hearken to aught, and they hearkened. But there came a time when I found out that things were worse with you than with me, and had gone harder with you. If you'd won where I lost it would have been different, but you lost most of the two—you'd the most to lose—and I changed my mind."

He stopped a second and looked at Murdoch, who had come back and thrown himself into his chair again.

"I've said many a time that you were a queer chap," he went on, as if half dubious of himself. "You are a queer chap. At th' start you got a hold on me, and when I changed my mind you got a hold on me again. I swore I'd undo what I'd done, if I could. I knew if the thing was finished and you got away with it they'd soon find out it was naught they need fret about, so I swore to see you safe through. I gave you the keys to come here to work, and every night I came and waited until you'd done and gone away. I brought my pistols with me and kept a sharp lookout. To-night I was late and they'd laid their plans and got here before me. There's th' beginning and there's th' end."

"You saved my life," said Murdoch. "Let me remember that."

"I changed my mind and swore to undo what I'd done. There's naught for me in that, my lad, and plenty to go agen me."

After a little he pushed his chair back.

"The time's not up," he said. "I've made short work of it. Pick up thy traps and we'll go over th' place together and see that it's safe."

He led the way, carrying the lantern, and Murdoch followed him. They went from one end of the place to the other and found all quiet; the bars of a small lower window had been filed and wrenched out of place, Mr. Reddy and his friends having made their entrance through it.

"They've been on the lookout many a night before they made up their minds," said Haworth. "And they chose the right place to try."

Afterward they went out together, locking the door and the iron gates behind them, and went down in company to the dark little station with its dim, twinkling lights.

Naturally they did not talk very freely. Now and then there was a blank silence of many minutes between them.

But at last the train thundered its way in and stopped, and there was a feeble bustle to and fro among the sleepy officials and an opening and shutting and locking of doors.

When Murdoch got into his empty compartment, Haworth stood at its step. At the very last he spoke in a strange hurry:

"When you come back," he said, "when you come back—perhaps——"

There was a porter passing with a lantern, which struck upon his face and showed it plainly. He shrank back a moment as if he feared the light; but when it was gone he drew near again and spoke through the window.

"If there's aught in what's gone by that's for me," he said, "remember it."

And with a gesture of farewell, he turned away and was gone.

CHAPTER L. "AN AFTER-DINNER SPEECH."

At dinner the next evening Mr. Ffrench had a story to tell. It was the rather exciting story of the completion of Murdoch's labor, the night attack and his sudden departure. Exciting as it was, however, Mr. Ffrench did not relate it in his most vivid manner. His nervous ailments had increased of late, and he was not in a condition to be vivacious and dramatic. The incident came from him rather tamely, upon the whole.

"If it is the success he thinks it is," he terminated, "he is a made man—and he is not the fellow to deceive himself. Well," he said, rather drearily, "I have said it would be so."

As Haworth had foreseen, Saint Méran appeared upon the scene again. He was present when the story was told, and was much interested in it as a dramatic incident bringing the peculiarities of the manufacturing class of Broxton into strong play.

"If they had murdered him," he remarked with critical niceness, "it would have been the most tragic of tragedies. On the very eve of his life's success. A tragedy indeed! And it is not bad either that it should have been his master who saved him."

"Why do you say master?" said Miss Ffrench, coldly.

"Pardon me. I thought——"

Mr. Ffrench interposed in some hurry.

"Oh, he has always been such an uncommon young fellow that we have scarcely thought of him as a servant. He has not been exactly a servant in fact."

"Ah!" replied Saint Méran. "I ask pardon again."

He had been not a little bewildered at the change he found in the household. Mr. Ffrench no longer expounded his views at length with refined vigor. He frequently excused himself from the family circle on plea of severe indisposition, and at other times he sat in singular and depressing silence. He was evidently ill; there were lines upon his forehead and circles about his eyes; he had a perturbed air and started without any apparent cause. A change showed itself in Miss Ffrench also,—so subtle as not to be easily described. It was a change which was not pallor nor fragility. It was an alteration which baffled him and yet forced him to recognize its presence constantly, and to endeavor to comprehend it. Ffrench himself had seen it and pondered over it in secret. When he sat in his private room at the Bank, bewildered and terrified even by the mere effort to think and face the future, his burden was not a little increased by his remembrance of his hours at home. More than all the rest he shrank from the day of reckoning with his daughter. He had confronted Haworth and borne the worst of his wrath. The account of himself which he must render to her would be the most scathing ordeal of his life.

"Some women would pity me," he said to himself, "but she will not."

Truth to tell, he looked forward pathetically to the possibility that hereafter their paths might lie apart. Fate had saved him one fearful responsibility, at least. Her private fortune had been beyond his reach and she would still be a rich woman even when the worst came. He could live on very little, he told himself, and there was always some hope for a man of resources. He still believed somewhat, though rather vaguely, in his resources.

A few days after Murdoch's departure there came to Broxton, on a visit of inspection, a dignitary of great magnitude—a political economist, a Member of Parliament. Above all other things he was absorbed in the fortunes of the manufacturing districts. He had done the trades-unions the honor of weighing their cause and reasoning with them; he had parleyed with the strikers and held meetings with the masters. He had heard of Haworth and his extraordinary stand against the outbreak, and was curious to see him.

He came as the guest of one of the county families, who regarded Haworth and his success a subject worth enlarging upon. He was taken to the Works and presented to their master. Haworth met him with little enthusiasm. He showed him over the place, but maintained his taciturnity. He was not even moved to any exhibition of gratitude on being told that he had done wonders.

The finale of the visit was a stately dinner given by the county family. Haworth and the member were the features of the festivity, and speeches were made which took a congratulatory and even a laudatory turn.

"I can't go," Ffrench cried, piteously, when Haworth came to his room at the Bank with the news. He turned quite white and sank back into his chair. "It is too much to ask. I—no. I am not strong enough."

He felt himself as good as a dead man when Haworth turned about and strode up to him, livid, and opening and shutting his hands.

"Blast you?" he hissed through his teeth. "You did it! You! And you shall pay for it as long as I'm nigh to make you!"

Saint Méran was among the guests, and Miss Ffrench, whose wonderful beauty attracted the dignitary's eye at once. Years after he remembered and spoke of her. He glanced toward her when he rose to make his after-dinner speech, and caught her eye, and was somewhat confused by it. But he was very eloquent. The master of "Haworth's" was his inspiration and text. His resources, his strength of will, his giant enterprises, his readiness and daring at the moment when all was at hazard—these were matters, indeed, for eloquence.

Haworth sat leaning forward upon the table. He played with his wine-glass, turning it round and round and not spilling a drop of the ruby liquid. Sometimes he glanced at the orator with a smile which no one exactly understood, oftener he kept his eyes fixed upon the full wine-glass.

When at length the speaker sat down with a swift final glance at Rachel Ffrench, there was a silence of several seconds. Everybody felt that a reply was needed. Haworth turned his wine-glass two or three times without raising his eyes, but at last, just as the pause was becoming embarrassing, he looked across the table at Ffrench, who sat opposite.

"I'm not a speech-making chap myself," he said. "My partner is. He'll say my say for me."

He gave Ffrench a nod. That gentleman had been pale and distracted through all the courses; now he became paler than ever. He hesitated, glanced around him, at the waiting guest and at Haworth (who nodded again), and then rose.

It was something unusual that Mr. Ffrench should hang back and show himself unready. He began his speech of thanks in his partner's name falteringly and as if at a loss for the commonest forms of expression; he replied to the member's compliments with hesitation; he spoke of the difficulties they had encountered with a visibly strong effort, he touched upon their success and triumph with such singular lack of exultation that those who listened began to exchange looks of questioning; and suddenly, in the midst of his wanderings and struggles at recovering himself, he broke off and begged leave to sit down.

"I am ill," he said. "I have—been—indisposed for some time. I must crave your pardon, and—and my partner's for my inability to say what—what I would wish."

He sat down amid many expressions of sympathy. The plea accounted for his unusual demeanor, it was thought. The member himself sought an interview with him, in which he expressed his regret and his sense of the fact that nothing was more natural than that the result of so long bearing a weight of responsibility should be a strain upon the nervous system and a consequent loss of physical strength.

"You must care for yourself, my dear sir," he added. "Your firm—nay, the country—cannot afford to lose an element like yourself at such a crisis."

On the morning following, the member left Broxton. On his way to the station he was moved to pay a final visit to Haworth at the Works.

"I congratulate you," he said, with much warmth on shaking hands with him. "I congratulate England upon your determination and indomitable courage, and upon your wonderful success."

There was a good deal of talk about Murdoch during his absence. The story of the attack and of Haworth's repulse of the attacking party became a popular incident. Mr. Reddy and his companions disappeared from the scene with promptness. Much interest was manifested in the ultimate success of the model, which had previously been regarded with a mingling of indifference and disfavor as not "loike to coom to owt." The results of its agreeably disappointing people by "coming to owt" were estimated at nothing short of a million per annum.

"Th' chap'll roll i' brass," it was said. "Haworth'll be nowheer. Happen th' lad'll coom back an' set up a Works agen him. An' he coom here nowt but a workin' chap a few year sin'!"

The two women in the little house in the narrow street heard the story of the attack only through report. They had no letters.

"I won't write," Murdoch had said. "You shall not be troubled by prospects that might end in nothing. You will hear nothing from me till I come and tell you with my own lips that I have won or failed."

In the days of waiting Christian proved her strength. She would not let her belief be beaten or weighed down. She clung to it in spite of what she saw hour by hour in the face of the woman who was her companion.

"I have lived through it before."

It was not put into words, but she read it in her eyes and believed in spite of it.

He had been away two weeks, and he returned as his father had done, at night.

The women were sitting together in the little inner room. They were not talking or working, though each had work in her hands. It was Christian who heard him first. She threw down her work and stood up.

"He is here," she cried. "He is coming up the step."

She was out in the narrow entry and had thrown the door open before he had time to open it with his key.

The light fell upon his dark pale face and showed a strange excitement in it. He was disheveled and travel-worn, but his eyes were bright. His first words were enough.

"It is all right," he said, in an exultant voice. "It is a success. Where is my mother?"

He had taken her hand as if without knowing what he did and fairly dragged her into the room. His mother had risen and stood waiting.

"It is a success," he cried out to her. "It is what he meant it to be—I have finished his work!"

She turned from him to the girl, uttering a low cry of appeal.

"Christian!" she said. "Christian!"

The girl went to her and made her sit down, and knelt before her, clasping her arms about her waist, and uplifting her glowing young face. At the moment her beauty became such a splendor that Murdoch himself saw it with wonder.

"It is finished," she said. "And it is he who has finished it! Is not that enough?"

"Yes," she answered, "but—but——"

And the words died upon her lips, and she sat looking before her into vacancy, and trembling.

Murdoch threw himself on the sofa and lay there, his hands clasped above his head.

"I shall be a rich man," he said, as if to himself, "a rich man—and it is nothing—but it is done."