When he reached home the house was utterly silent. He entered with his latch-key and finding all dark went upstairs noiselessly.
The door of his own room was closed, and when he opened it he found darkness there also. He struck a match and turned on the light. For a moment its sudden glare blinded him, and then he turned involuntarily toward the farther corner of the room. Why he did so, he did not know at the time,—the movement was the result of an uncontrollable impulse,—but after he had looked he knew.
The light shone upon the empty chair in its old place—and upon the table and upon the model standing on it!
He did not utter any exclamation; strangely enough, he did not at first feel any shock or surprise. He advanced toward it slowly. But when at last he stood near it, the shock came. His heart beat as if it would burst.
"What falseness is there in me," he cried, "that I should have forgotten it?"
He was stricken with burning shame. He did not ask himself how it was that it stood there in its place. He thought of nothing but the lack in himself which was so deep a humiliation. Everything else was swept away. He sank into the chair and sat staring at it.
"I had forgotten it," he said,—"forgotten it."
And then he put out his hand and touched and moved it—and drew it toward him.
About an hour afterward he was obliged to go downstairs for something he needed. It was to the sitting-room he went, and when he pushed the door open he found a dim light burning and saw that some one was lying upon the sofa. His first thought was that it was his mother who had waited for him, but it was not she—it was Christian Murdoch, fast asleep with her face upon her arm.