With the disappearance of the two into the clubhouse, a perfect Bedlam of eager, breathless questions were flung at the other men of the party, and, as the story was briefly told, exclamations of amazement, contempt and scorn arose on every side. Some of the men were even incredulous. It did not seem possible that the dashing, debonair Stovebridge, one of the most popular of their number, and the best all-around athlete in the club, could have been guilty of such behavior; but they were at length convinced, and Roger Clingwood was urged to lose no time in summoning an officer to take him into custody.
As Brose Stovebridge crossed the threshold of the bedroom, his self-control snapped like a broken thread and he flung himself face downward on the bed, uttering a gasping cry of despair. Lying there, shaken with dry, racking sobs, he thought of the little child whose life had been the penalty of his recklessness. There was no doubt in his mind that she had died, and for the first time in his life the thought of his own troubles was swallowed up in the agony of that greater wrong he had done another.
Jack Niles gazed down at the man who had once been his friend, and his first feeling of infinite contempt gradually changed to pity. The man was suffering—suffering keenly; and Niles did not like to see any one suffer.
“Brace up, Stove,” he said roughly, but with kindly intent. “Take your medicine like a man. There’s no use crying over spilt milk.”
A shiver went through the other’s frame.
“It’s spilt—blood—I’m thinking about,” came in muffled gasps.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet and faced Niles. His eyes were full of unutterable despair; there were traces of tears on his cheeks, his hands clenched and unclenched ceaselessly.
“You won’t believe me, Jack,” he said in a strange, unnatural voice, “but I’m not thinking about myself, I don’t care what they do to me. It’s the idea of that little child, dead—killed by my own hand as surely as though I had shot her through the heart—that’s driving me mad.”
Niles opened his lips to speak and then closed them again. It was not up to him to tell Stovebridge that, so far as he knew, the child was not dead. She might have died that morning—they had been expecting it all night—and it would be cruel to raise any false hopes.
So he muttered a few rough words of sympathy and, closing the door, locked it on the outside.