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Rh. 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.