"He is a fine fellow."
"Do you say that? He made a big mistake in killing the wife, though, didn't he? If I had been in his place do you know what I should have done?"
"What?"
"Killed the other man."
Stowell drew back in his seat and at the next moment the train started.
As it ran into the country a black thought, a vague shadow of something, was swirling like a bat in the darkness of Stowell's brain. That was not the first time it had come to him. It had come to him in Court, while he was speaking, startling him, stifling him, almost compelling him to sit down.
"But Bessie's case was different," he thought. "She was not deserted. She sent Alick to me herself. Therefore it's impossible, quite impossible."
Nevertheless, he slept badly that night, and as often as he awoke he had the sense of a red glow in his bedroom and of being blinded by the fierce glare from a burning boat.