Sitting at the desk, where his father had sat the night before, he took up the leather-bound book and read it from end to end—not without a sense of looking into the sanctuary of another soul, where only God's eyes should see.
It was a large volume, of some five hundred quarto pages, with "Isobel's Diary" inscribed on its first page, and these words below:
"Inasmuch as I cannot believe that my beloved companion who has died to-day is lost to me even in this life, and being convinced that the divine purpose in leaving me behind is that I may care for and guard her child, I dedicate this book to the record of my sacred duty."
Then followed, in the Deemster's steady handwriting, a daily entry, sometimes only a phrase or a line, sometimes a page, but always about his son:
"This morning in the library, making my desk under your portrait his altar, Parson Cowley baptised your boy—Janet Curphey standing godmother, and the Attorney his other sponsor. We called him Victor, so the last of your dear wishes has been fulfilled."
Stowell looked up and around him. He was on the very spot of that scene of so many years ago. Then came records of his childhood, his childish talk, his childish rhymes, his childish ailments:
"Your boy contracted a cold yesterday, and fearing it might develop into bronchitis, I sat up most of the night that I might go into the nursery at intervals to mend the fire under the steam kettle, Janet being worn out and sleepy. Thank God his breathing is better this morning!"
Stowell felt as if he were choking. Then came the records of his school-days; his expulsion; the slack times before he set to work; the bright ones when he was a student-at-law; the dark ones when he was going headlong to the dogs. After these latter entries it would be:
"A son is a separate being, Isobel. I can only stand and wait."
Or sometimes, as if for comfort, a line from one of the great books, not rarely the Bible: