"I'm already on the track of something."
"On the track...."
"Yes. It seems that somebody has been telling the mother that on the night when the girl left home (shut out by her abominable step-father, you know) she went to the house of a Mrs. Quayle, living on the south shore in Ramsey."
Stowell's heart thumped and his lips quivered.
"Mrs. Quayle?"
"Why, that must be the housekeeper at your chambers, dear," said Janet, busy with her teacups.
"You know her? .... But then everybody knows everybody in the Isle of Man," said Fenella.
With a sense of duplicity, Stowell found himself saying, "Well?"
"Well, I'm going to see this Mrs. Quayle on my way home to Government House. She'll be able to tell me how long the girl stayed with her, who took her away, and where she went to."
Stowell dropped his head, feeling that he wanted to escape from the room, and Fenella (indignantly, passionately, vehemently) went on to denounce the guilty man.