"I had to do it, Fenella--I thought I had to."
A moment passed.
"He asked me to tell you that he would keep his word to you, whatever
happened."
"Did he say that?"
"Yes."
A spasm in Stowell's throat seemed to be stifling him.
"I did wrong, Fenella, terribly wrong, but there is one thing I will
ask of you."
"What is it, Victor?"
"Not to judge me until you know what I've come to do to-day."
Fenella, deeply affected, thought she caught a glimpse of his meaning.
"Do you intend to resign, Victor?"
"Yes, but that is not all."
"What is, Victor?" She was thinking of his exile, his possible
banishment.
"Perhaps I am speaking to you for the last time, Fenella. That's why
I am glad you have given me this opportunity of seeing you."
She trembled, thinking he meant suicide, and said in a choking voice,
"You don't mean that you intend to take your .... No, no, that is
impossible. Think of your father."
Stowell did not speak for a moment. Then he said,
"I saw him last night, Fenella."
"Who?"
"My father. I was thinking of that as a way out of all this
miserable wrong-doing, when he came to warn me."
"How he must have suffered," thought Fenella.
"But perhaps you think it was only a delusion?"
"Indeed no! If the spirits of our dear ones may not come back to
speak to us in our times of temptation...."
"But my father was not the only one who spoke to me last night,
Fenella."
"Who else did, Victor?"
"You. I heard you as plainly as I hear you now."
Fenella's bosom was heaving. "When was that?" she asked.
"In the middle of the night. But perhaps you were in bed and asleep
at that time."
"No .... no, I did not sleep until after daybreak. In the middle of
the night I was" .... (she was breathing audibly) "I was praying."
He looked up at her with his heavy eyes.
"Were you praying for me, Fenella?"