Stowell did not return to his office that afternoon. His young clerk locked up, left the keys, went downstairs and shut the door after him, but still he sat in the gathering darkness like a man nursing an incurable wound. He would never forgive himself for allowing Fenella to come into his rooms—never!
"You fool!" he thought, leaping up at last. "What's done is done, and all you've got to do now is to stand up to it."
Then he lit the gas and taking the report out of his pocket he began to read it. What a shock! As, little by little, through the thick-set hedge of question and answer, the story of the wretched young wife came out to him, he saw, to his horror, that it was the story of Bessie Collister as he had imagined it might be if he deserted her.
What devil out of hell had brought this case to him as a punishment? By the hand of Fenella, too! No matter! If the unseen powers were concerning themselves with his miserable misdoings perhaps it was only to strengthen him in his resolution—to compel him to go on.
Suffer? Of course he would suffer! It was only right that he should suffer. And as for the haunting presence of Fenella's face in that room, there was a way to banish that.
So, sitting at his desk, he wrote,
"DEAR BESSIE,—Please go into Castletown to-morrow and have your photograph taken, and send it on to me immediately."
After that he felt more at ease and sat down before the fire to study his case.
III
"I must not go to Ballamoar while she's there. It would be madness," thought Stowell.