And there my reason stayed. But I knew enough to realize I hadn't yet fulfilled the quest Jenny had set me on. At first it had seemed like an exquisite piece of irony that I had been searching for her father's enemy only to learn that all the while I had been tracking down my own friend. But now I knew I had killed my friend for nothing. My father's murderer and the Captain's persecutor were still at large. I thought by Worthing's story they were probably the same man, but I had paid a terrible price for that little piece of information. So with the wretched thought at my heart that I had killed my friend, severed myself from my sweetheart, and had all my work still before me, I felt utterly weary and deserted, an outcast of fortune, alone in an evil world. Little by little, of course I came to face up to the thing. I was no longer the boy I had been even a year ago when my father had been killed. I had seen the world since then; I had developed in mind and body. I think my love for Jenny had helped to give me something of a man's outlook and self-reliance, though I was still far enough from the years of manhood. I knew I must take my life into my hands, not mope stupidly and aimlessly, hoping for something to come to my aid from Heaven knew where. With the growth of this resolution to see the thing through I began to turn over the papers I had been given, and to dip here and there into my father's writings, thinking I might come upon some clue which would lead me to the heart of the mystery. For I knew now there would be no peace for me till the evil ghost was laid. So I turned over the pages, but my mind was still too distracted for clear thinking, and I learnt little. Then I began to long for Jenny again, though I knew I mustn't see her. For I had told her that her father's enemy was dead, that I had killed him, and now I knew he was still alive, and possibly was already casting his evil snares once again about the Captain's life. I couldn't face Jenny till I had really freed her father from his foe. I remembered my father's words, "Always make sure, Tommy." If he had made sure that night in the hut, if I hadn't fired into the mirror at Sunset Towers, if I had but torn aside the mask before I had dealt the fatal blow at Naples!... But such considerations were clean from the purpose and only left me limp and dejected, speculating on what might so easily have been, and crying against the strangling fatality which seemed to have my whole life in its evil grip. All I knew for certain was that my father's murderer, the Captain's enemy, was still alive, and I mustn't see Jenny again until I had killed him beyond all shadow of doubt.