By this time, she had seen Murdoch the oftener of the two. Mr. Ffrench's fancy for him was more enthusiastic than his fancy for the young man from Manchester or the Cumberland mechanic. He also found him useful, and was not chary of utilizing him. In time, the servants of the house ceased to regard him as an outsider, and were surprised when he was absent for a few days. "We have a fellow at our place whom you will hear of some of these days," Ffrench said to his friends. "He spends his evenings with me often." "Ffrench has taken a great fancy to thee, lad," Haworth said, drily. "He says you're goin' to astonish us some o' these days." "Does he?" Murdoch answered. "Aye. He's got a notion that you're holding on to summat on the quiet, and that it'll come out when we're not expecting it." They were in the little work-room together, and Murdoch, leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head, looked before him without replying, except by a slight knitting of his brows. Haworth laughed harshly. "Confound him for a fool!" he said. "I'm sick of the chap, with his talk. He'll stir me up some o' these days." Then he looked up at his companion. "He has you up there every night or so," he said. "What does he want of you?" "Never the same thing twice," said Murdoch. "Do you--always see her?" "Yes." The man moved in his seat, a sullen red rising to his forehead. "What--has she to say?" he asked. Murdoch turned about to confront him. He spoke in a low voice, and slowly. "Do you want to know," he said, "whether she treats me as she would treat another man? Is that it?" "Aye," was the grim answer, "summat o' that sort, lad." Murdoch left his chair. He uttered half a dozen words hoarsely. "Come up to the house some night and judge for yourself," he said. He went out of the room without looking back. It was Saturday noon, and he had the half-day of leisure before him, but he did not turn homeward. He made his way to the high road and struck out upon it. He had no definite end in view, at first, except the working off of his passionate excitement, but when, after twenty minutes' walk he came within sight of Broxton Chapel and its grave-yard his steps slackened, and when he reached the gate, he stopped a moment and pushed it open and turned in. It was a quiet little place, with an almost rustic air, of which even the small, ugly chapel could not rob it. The grass grew long upon the mounds of earth and swayed softly in the warm wind. Only common folk lay there, and there were no monuments and even few slabs. Murdoch glanced across the sun-lit space to the grass-covered mound of which he had thought when he stopped at the gateway. He had not thought of meeting any one, and at the first moment the sight of a figure standing at the grave-side in the sunshine was something of a shock to him. He went forward more slowly, even with some reluctance, though he had recognized at once that the figure was that of Christian Murdoch.