Page:Haworth's.djvu/373

Rh 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