Janet saw him coming downstairs dressed for dinner (he had dressed for dinner during his married days and kept up the habit ever afterwards, though he nearly always dined alone) just as old Willie Killip, the postman, with his red lantern at his belt, came through the open porch to the vestibule door. Taking his letter and going into the Library, he had stood by the writing desk under the "Stranger's" picture, while he opened the envelope and looked at the contents of it. His face had fallen after he read the first page, and it was the same as if the sun was setting on the man, but when he turned the second it had lightened, and it was just as if the day was dawning on him. Then, without a moment's hesitation, he sat at the desk and wrote a telegram for old Willie to take back. It was to the Principal at King William's, and there was only one line in it-- "Send him home--_Stowell_." After that--Janet was ready to swear on the Holy Book to it--he rose and looked up into the "Stranger's" face and said, in a low voice that was like that of a prayer: "It's all right, Isobel--it is well." CHAPTER THREE FATHERS AND SONS Next day the Deemster drove to Douglas to meet his son coming back. The weather was cold, he had to leave home in the grey of morning, and he was driving in an open dog-cart, but the Deemster knew what he was doing. Ten minutes before the train came in from Castletown he had drawn up in the station yard. The passengers came through from the platform and saw him there, and he sainted some of them. Cæsar Qualtrough was among them, a gross-bodied and dark-faced man, darker than ever that day with a look of animosity and scorn. When, at the tail of the crowd, Victor came, in the sour silence of the disgraced, no longer wearing his college cap, and with his discoloured college trunk being trundled behind him, the Deemster said nothing, but he indicated the seat by his side, and the boy climbed up to it. Then with his white head erect and his strong eyes shining he drove out of the station yard. It was still early morning and he was in no hurry to return home. For half an hour he passed slowly through the principal thoroughfares of the town, bowing to everybody he knew and speaking to many. It was market day and he made for the open space about the old church on the quay, where the farmers' wives were standing in rows with their baskets of butter and eggs, the farmers' sons with their tipped-up carts of vegetables, and the smaller of the farmers themselves, from all parts of the island, with their carcases of sheep and oxen. Without leaving his seat the Deemster bought of several of them and had his purchases packed about the college trunk behind him.