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.