Before the evening was half over it was evident to all that she was not resenting the presence of her father's new found friend. She listened to his attempts at conversation with an attentive and suave little smile. If she was amusing herself at his expense, she was at the same time amusing herself at the expense of those who looked on, and was delicately defying their opinion. Jem Haworth went home that night excited and exultant. He lay awake through the night, and went down to the Works early. "I didn't get the worst of it, after all," he said to Murdoch. "Let 'em grin and sert if they will--'them laughs that wins.' She--she never was as handsome in her life as she was last night, and she never treated me as well. She never says much. She only _lets_ a fellow come nigh and talk; but she treated me well--in her way." "I'm going to send for my mother," he said afterward, somewhat shamefacedly. "I'm goin' to begin a straight life; I want naught to stand agin me. And if she's here they'll come to see her. I want all the chances I can get." He wrote the letter to his mother the same day. "The old lady will be glad enough to come," he said, when he had finished it. "The finery about her will trouble her a bit at first, but she'll get over it." His day's work over, Murdoch did not return home at once. His restless habit of taking long rambles across the country had asserted itself with unusual strength, of late. He spent little time in the house. To-night he was later than usual. He came in fagged and mud-splashed. Christian was leaving the room as he entered it, but she stopped with her hand upon the door. "We have had visitors," she said. "Who?" he asked. "Mr. Ffrench and his daughter. Mr. Ffrench wanted to see you. _She_ did not come in, but sat in the carriage outside." She shut the door and came back to the hearth. "She despises us all!" she said. "She despises us all!" He had flung himself into a chair and lay back, clasping his hands behind his head and looking gloomily before him. "Sometimes I think she does," he said. "But what of that?" She answered without looking at him. "To be sure," she said. "What of that?" After a little she spoke again. "There is something I have thought of saying to you," she said. "It is this. I am happier here than I ever was before." "I am very glad," he answered. "I never thought of being happy," she went on, "or like other women in anything. I--I was different." She said the words with perfect coldness. "I was different." "Different!" he echoed absently, and then checked himself. "Don't say that," he said. "Don't think it. It won't do. Why shouldn't you be as good and happy as any woman who ever lived?" She remained silent. But her silence only stirred him afresh. "It is a bad beginning," he said. "I know it is because I have tried it. I have said to myself that I was different from other men, too." He ended with an impatient movement and a sound half like a groan.