# Haworth's/Chapter XLVI

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 war 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!"
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.