Then he dropped his hand and looked indefinite again.
"I should like you to always remember that I am your friend," he said. "I wish I could have been of more service to you. You are a fine fellow, Murdoch. I have admired you—I have liked you. Don't forget it."
And he went away carrying the burden of his indecision and embarrassment and good intention with much amiable awkwardness.
That day Murdoch did not see Rachel Ffrench. Circumstances occurred which kept him at work until a late hour. The next day it was the same story, and the next also. A series of incidents seemed to combine against him, and the end of each day found him worn out and fretted. But on the fourth he was free again, and early in the evening found himself within sight of the iron gates. Every pulse in his body throbbed as he passed through them. He was full of intense expectation. He could scarcely bear to think of what was before him. His desperate happiness was a kind of pain. One of his chief longings was that he might find her wearing the pale blue dress again and that when he entered she might be standing in the centre of the room as he had left her. Then it would seem as if there had been no nights and days between the last terribly happy moment and this. The thought which flashed across his mind that there might possibly be some one else in the room was a shock to him.
"If she is not alone," he said to himself, "it will be unbearable."
As he passed up the walk, he came upon a tall white lily blooming on one of the border beds. He was in a sufficiently mystical and emotional mood to be stopped by it.
"It is like her," he said. And he gathered it and took it with him to the house.
The first thing upon which his eye rested when he stood upon the threshold of the room was the pale blue color, and she was standing just as he had left her, it seemed to him upon the very same spot upon which they had parted. His wish had been realized so far at least.
He was obliged to pause a moment to regain his self-control. It was an actual truth that he could not have trusted himself so far as to go in at once.
It was best that he did not. The next instant she turned and spoke to a third person at the other side of the room, and even as she did so caught sight of him and stopped.