"I've got it into my head that you'll finish it some of these days," he said once, "if naught happens to it or you."
CHAPTER XLVIII. FINISHED.
One night, Murdoch, on leaving the house, said to Christian:
"Don't expect me until morning. I may not be back until then. I think I shall work all night."
She did not ask him why. For several days she had seen that a singular mood was upon him, that he was restless. Sometimes, when he met her eye unexpectedly, he started and colored and turned away, as if he was a little afraid. She stood upon the step and watched him until he disappeared in the darkness, and then shut the door and went in to his mother.
A quarter of an hour afterward he entered his work-room, and shut himself in and brought out the model.
He sat looking at it a moment, and then stretched forth his hand to touch it. Suddenly he drew it back and let it fall heavily upon the table. "Good Heavens!" he cried. "Did he ever feel so near as this, and then fail?" The shock was almost unbearable. "Are there to be two of us?" he said. "Was not one enough?" But he put forth his hand again a minute later, though his heart beat like a trip-hammer. "It rests with me to prove it," he said—"with me!"
As he worked, the dead silence about him seemed to become more intense. His own breathing was a distinct sound, light as it was; the accidental dropping of a tool upon the table was a jar upon him; the tolling of the church bell at midnight was unbearable. He even took out his watch and stopped it. But at length he knew neither sound nor stillness; he forgot both.