"The brute! The beast! Did you tell him your train was late?"
"No. He ought to have known that for himself."
"So he ought. You are quite right there, Bessie. But didn't your
mother...."
"Mother is afraid of her life of the man. She daren't say anything."
"Was there any other house he might have thought you would go to--any
neighbour's, any relation's?"
"I have no relations, Sir."
"Ah! .... Then he deliberately shut you out of his house in the
middle of the night, knowing you had nowhere else to go to?"
"Yes!"
"The damned scoundrel!"
Bessie, who had been crying again, was looking up at him with wet but
shining eyes.
"Well, what are you going to do now? Do you know anybody in town who
can take you in for to-night?"
"No."
"Then I must knock up one of the Inns for you. Here's the old
Plough--what do you say to the Plough?"
"Dan Baldromma goes there--Mrs. Beatty would get into trouble."
"The Saddle then?"
"I go there myself, every market-day, with butter and eggs--people
would be talking."
There was only the Mitre Hotel left, and Stowell himself shrank from
that. To go to the Mitre with a girl at this time of night would be
like shouting into the mouth of a megaphone. Within twenty-four
hours the whole town would hear the story, with every explanation
except the right one.
"But, good heavens, girl, I can't go home and go to bed and leave you
to walk about in the streets."
"I'll do whatever you think best, Sir," said Bessie, crying again and
stammering.
They were at the corner of Old Post Office Place by this time, and,
after a moment's hesitation, he took the girl's hand and drew it
through his arm and then turned quickly in the opposite direction,
saying:
"Come, then, let us think."
It was still raining but Stowell was scarcely aware of that. With
the girl walking close by his side he was only conscious of a return
of the faint dizziness he had felt in the garden at Douglas. To
conquer this and to keep up his indignation about Dan Baldromma,
while they walked round the square of streets, he asked what the man
had said when he finally shut down the window.
"He said I was to find my bed where I had found my company," said
Bessie, stammering again and with her head down.
"Meaning that you had been in bad company?"
"Yes."
"The foul-minded ruffian!"
His nerves were quivering, and he knew that the hot tide of his
indignation was ebbing rapidly. Suddenly an idea came to him and he
felt an immense relief--Mrs. Quayle! She was a good, religious
woman, who had seen sorrow herself, and that was the best kind to go
to in a time of trouble. She would take Bessie in for to-night, and
to-morrow they would all three go back together to Baldromma, and
then--then he would tell that old blackguard what he thought of him.
"That's it, Bessie! I wonder why in the world I didn't think of it
before?"
Bessie was answering "Yes" and "Yes," but her beaming eyes were
looking sideways up at him, and the blood was pounding through his
body with a rush.
They had got back to the corner of Old Post Office Place when Stowell
stopped and said:
"Wait! Mrs. Quayle's house is rather a long way off--one of the
little fishermen's cottages on the south beach, you know. I'm not
quite sure that she has a second bed. And then she might be alarmed
if two of us turned up at this time of night. What if I run over
first and make sure?"