"There's th' key," he said, abruptly. "Use it. No other chap would get it."
He went back to his own room, and Murdoch was left to his surprise.
He finished his work for the day, and went home, remaining there until night came on. Then he went back to the Works, having first told Christian of his purpose.
"I am going to the Works," he said. "I may be there all night. Don't wait for me, or feel anxious."
When the great building loomed up before him in the dark, his mind recalled instantly the night he had entered it before, attracted by the light in the window. There was no light about it now but that shut in the lantern he carried. The immensity and dead stillness would have been a trying thing for many a man to encounter, but as he relocked the door and made his way to his den, he thought of them only from one point of view.
"It is the silence of the grave," he said. "A man can concentrate himself upon his work as if there was not a human breath stirring within a mile of him."
Somehow, even his room wore a look which seemed to belong to the silence of night—a look he felt he had not seen before. He marked it with a vague sense of mystery when he set his lantern down upon the table, turning the light upon the spot on which his work would stand.
Then he took down the case and opened it and removed the model.
"It will not be forgotten again," he thought aloud. "If it is to be finished, it will be finished here."