Meantime he saw nothing of Fenella. Having made up his mind to do the right thing he tried his best to banish all thought of her. But everybody was talking of the Governor's daughter. She was beautiful; she was charming; she was wonderful! Oh, the joy of it all! But the pain and the misery of it, also!
One day he met Janet driving in the street, and after she had asked if he had received her letter, and he had answered no, it had arrived too late, she said,
"But of course you'll call, dear. I'm sure she'll expect it."
The Governor sent out invitations to a garden-party in honour of his daughter's return home, but Stowell excused himself on the ground of urgent work. A little later Fenella herself issued invitations to a meeting towards the establishment of a League for the Protection of Women, but again Stowell excused himself—a case in the Courts.
Still later he went out to Ballamoar to see his father, whom he had neglected of late, and the Deemster (who looked older and feebler and had a duller light in his great but melancholy eyes) flamed up with a kind of youth when he talked of Fenella.
"It's extraordinary," he said. "Do you know, Victor, she is the only woman I have ever met who has reminded me of your mother? And if I close my eyes when she is speaking, I can almost persuade myself it is the same."
Stowell began to think he hated the very name of Fenella. But there were moments when he felt that he could have given the whole world, if he had possessed it, just to look upon her face.
One day Gell came to "report progress" about Bessie. She was getting on all right, but "longing" a little in those unaccustomed surroundings, so he had to go down in the evenings sometimes to take her out for walks.
"We'll have to be careful about that, though," he said, "for what do you think?"
"What?"