"I go there myself, every market-day, with butter and eggs—people would be talking."
There was only the Mitre Hotel left, and Stowell himself shrank from that. To go to the Mitre with a girl at this time of night would be like shouting into the mouth of a megaphone. Within twenty-four hours the whole town would hear the story, with every explanation except the right one.
"But, good heavens, girl, I can't go home and go to bed and leave you to walk about in the streets."
"I'll do whatever you think best, Sir," said Bessie, crying again and stammering.
They were at the corner of Old Post Office Place by this time, and, after a moment's hesitation, he took the girl's hand and drew it through his arm and then turned quickly in the opposite direction, saying:
"Come, then, let us think."
It was still raining but Stowell was scarcely aware of that. With the girl walking close by his side he was only conscious of a return of the faint dizziness he had felt in the garden at Douglas. To conquer this and to keep up his indignation about Dan Baldromma, while they walked round the square of streets, he asked what the man had said when he finally shut down the window.
"He said I was to find my bed where I had found my company," said Bessie, stammering again and with her head down.
"Meaning that you had been in bad company?"
"Yes."