"It is not finished," he said to the echoes of the empty room. "It—never will be."
He slowly replaced it in its case, and buried it out of sight at the bottom of the trunk which, from that day forward, would stand unused and locked.
When he arose, after doing this, he unconsciously struck his hands together as he had seen grave-diggers do when they brushed the damp soil away.
The first time Haworth saw his new hand he regarded him with small favor. In crossing the yard one day at noon, he came upon him disposing of his midday meal and reading at the same time. He stopped to look at him.
"Who's that?" he asked one of the men.
The fellow grinned in amiable appreciation of the rough tone of the query.
"That's th' 'Merican," he answered. "An' a soft un he is."
"What's that he's reading?"
"Summat about engineerin', loike as not. That's his crank."
In the rush of his new plans and the hurry of the last few months, Haworth had had time to forget the man who had wished him "good luck," and whose pathetic figure had been a shadow upon the first glow of his triumph. He did not connect him at all with the young fellow before him. He turned away with a shrug of his burly shoulders.