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.