On returning to Ballamoar, Stowell found Janet in great agitation. Mrs. Gell had sent across to ask if Robbie could run into Ramsey to fetch Doctor Clucas. The doctor had come and gone. The Speaker had had a stroke. It was his second. The third would almost certainly prove fatal.
All that day Stowell was shaken by a chill terror. If the Speaker died would Alick Gell come back to claim his inheritance? If so he would hear it said on all sides that he had killed his father by the disgrace he had brought on him.
What then? Would he tell the whole truth under that terrible temptation, and thus bring down Stowell himself to ruin and extinction?
"But what nonsense I'm talking," thought Stowell.
Gell could never come back, because Bessie could never do so. Then who was to know that it was a lie that Gell had killed his father?
Suddenly came the thought, "I am to know."
This fell on him like a thunderbolt. How was he to marry Fenella with a thought like that in his heart? It would be with him night and day. He might even blurt it out in his sleep. "Assassin! It was I who killed the old man by letting that lie go on."
Feeling feverish and unable to remain indoors, he went out to walk on the gravel path in front of the house. The fresh air revived him and he took possession of himself again.
"If the Speaker dies it will be the act of God," he thought.
He would be in no way responsible. Neither would Gell. If rumour charged the son with killing the father it would be a lie—a damned lie, manufactured by Fate, the great liar.