And Chris, giving him a familiar, affectionate push towards the door of the room he had been about to enter, passed on.
The news of Christian’s return to the office spread quickly, and was received with great personal satisfaction throughout the works, where the easy, pleasant manners of the “guv’nor’s” son had made him a universal favorite. The tidings flew beyond the works, too, for Joan told Bram that Mr. Biron and his daughter had heard of Christian’s return, and added that the mention of his name had been received by Claire in dead, blank silence.
“Poor lass! She looked that queer when she heard it,” said Joan.
Bram, as usual, said nothing. The conflict between his feeling towards Claire and his feeling towards Christian grew hourly more acute.
“She wouldn’t hear what Mr. Biron had to say,” pursued Joan. “But she joost oop and went to her room, and Ah saw no more of her till Ah coom away. But she were that white! Ah wished she’d talk more, or else cry more; Ah doan’t like them pains as you doan’t hear nothing abaht. They gnaw, they do! It’d be better for her to go abaht calling folks names, like Meg!”
But this reference to Meg Tyzack in the same breath with Claire wounded Bram, who turned away quickly. Surely the life of patient self-sacrifice she was leading in constant attendance upon her selfish father was ample atonement for the error into which she had been driven.
It was a great shock to him when, on the afternoon of the following day, just before the clerks left the office, he heard a rumor that Miss Biron had come down to the works, and was asking to see Mr. Christian. Bram at first refused to believe the report. He went downstairs on purpose to find out the truth for himself, and saw in the yard, to his dismay, the figure of Claire in an angle of the wall. Well as he knew the little figure, he would not even then believe the evidence of his own eyes without further proof. He crossed the yard towards her. Claire ran out, passing close to him, so that he was able to look into her face. It was indeed she, but her face was so much changed, wore an expression so wild, so desperate, that Bram felt his heart stand still.
He called to her, but she only ran the faster. She disappeared into the building which contained the offices, and quickly as Bram followed he could not track her. When he reached the bottom of the staircase, he could neither see nor hear anything of her.
While he was wondering what would happen, whether she would present herself in the office of old Mr. Cornthwaite himself, and be treated by him with the brutal cynicism he always expressed while speaking of her, or whether she would find her way straight to Christian, he heard footsteps in the corridor above, and a moment later Chris himself, singing softly to himself, and swinging his umbrella as if he had not a care in the world, appeared at the top of the stair.