Floxham left him, and he went back to the big armchair behind the table. He sat down, and turned over some papers, not rid of his uneasiness even when the door opened, and his visitor came in. He was a tall, slender man who stooped and was narrow-chested. He was gray, hollow-eyed and haggard. He removed his shabby hat and stood before the table a second, in silence. "Mr. Haworth?" he said, in a gentle, absent-minded voice. "They told me this was Mr. Haworth's room." "Yes," he answered, "I'm Haworth." "I want--" a little hoarsely, and faltering--"to get some work to do. My name is Murdoch. I've spent the last thirty years in America, but I'm a Lancashire man. I went to America on business--which has not been successful--yet. I--I have worked here before,"--with a glance around him,--"and I should like to work here again. I did not think it would be necessary, but--that doesn't matter. Perhaps it will only be temporary. I must get work." In the last sentence his voice faltered more than ever. He seemed suddenly to awaken and bring himself back to his first idea, as if he had not intended to wander from it. "I--I must get work," he repeated. The effect he produced upon the man he appealed to was peculiar. Jem Haworth almost resented his frail appearance. He felt it an uncomfortable thing to confront just at this hour of his triumph. He had experienced the same sensation, in a less degree, when he rose in the morning and looked out of his window upon murky sky and falling rain. He would almost have given a thousand pounds for clear, triumphant sunshine. And yet, in spite of this, he was not quite as brusque as usual when he made his answer. "I've heard of you," he said. "You've had ill luck." Stephen Murdoch shifted his hat from hand to hand. "I don't know," he replied, slowly. "I've not called it that yet. The end has been slow, but I think it's sure. It will come some----" Haworth made a rough gesture. "By George!" he exclaimed. "Haven't you given the thing up yet?" Murdoch fell back a pace, and stared at him in a stunned way. "Given it up!" he repeated. "Yet?" "Look here!" said Haworth. "You'd better do it, if you haven't. Take my advice, and have done with it. You're not a young chap, and if a thing's a failure after thirty years' work----" He stopped, because he saw the man trembling nervously. "Oh, I didn't mean to take the pluck out of you," he said bluntly, a moment later. "You must have had plenty of it to begin with, egad, or you'd never have stood it this long." "I don't know that it was pluck,"--still quivering. "I've lived on it so long that it would not give _me_ up. I think that's it." Haworth dashed off a couple of lines on a slip of paper, and tossed it to him. "Take that to Greyson," he said, "and you'll get your work, and if you have anything to complain of, come to me." Murdoch took the paper, and held it hesitatingly.