"Bessie!"
The jailer had gone. Alick was breathing quickly in the darkness by
the door, and Bessie was huddled up on the bed, with the dull ray of
reflected light upon her from the wall above.
"Bessie!"
His voice was low and full of tears. At first she did not answer.
"It's Alick. Won't you speak to me?"
"Go away!"
He could hear that she was crying.
"You won't send me away, Bessie. I have been looking for you all
over the island. It was only to-day I heard where you were and what
had happened. I have come to help you--to save you."
He saw the dark form rising on the bed.
"Do you know what they say I did?"
"Yes, I know everything."
"And you don't believe it?"
"Not one word of it."
"You think I am innocent?"
"I am sure you are."
"Alick!"
With a great sob that shook her whole body she rose to her feet and
flung herself upon him. For a long time they stood clasped in each
other's arms, and crying like children. Then they sat down side by
side on the plank bed. His arm was about her, and her head was on
his shoulder.
He was trying to make his voice cheerful, though it cracked sorely,
while he reproved her for her tears. She would soon be free to leave
that place. There was really nothing against her. Never had there
been such a trumped-up case. The police must be crazy.
She clung to him with a frightened tenderness while he told her of
the letter from Fenella Stanley asking him to take up the defence on
behalf of the Society.
"Of course I should have taken it up in any case, you know. And now
you must authorise me to defend you."
She was startled. In the half darkness he saw her pale face (so pale
and so thin) raised to his with a frightened look.
"You?"
"Why not, dear? I'm an advocate. You don't suppose I'm going to
leave your defence to anybody else, do you?"
"No, no! You must not!"
"But why? Can't you trust me, Bess?"
"It isn't that."
"What then?"
Bessie did not answer him, and he went on talking, though his voice
was breaking again. He knew he was not a born lawyer and a great
speaker like Stowell, but the facts were so clear that he had only to
state them and they would speak for themselves.
A fierce struggle was going on in Bessie's soul. He whom she had
wronged (never having wronged anybody else), he for whom she had
committed her crime, wanted her to authorise him to stand up in Court
and say she had not committed it. She had deceived him once--could
she deceive him again?
"No, no, no! I cannot!"
Alick was puzzled. "What do you mean, Bessie? Why shouldn't I be
your advocate?"
"I don't want any advocate."
"But you must have one. It isn't enough to be not guilty--we must
prove you're not. Why shouldn't I do so?"
At length she was forced to make some explanation. The police were
determined to have her condemned; therefore he would lose his case
and that would go against him.
"Good gracious, girl, what nonsense! Anybody may lose a case. The
greatest lawyers have lost cases. But it's impossible that I should
lose this one. And even if I lose it--do you know what I shall do?"
"What?"
"Wait outside the prison door until you come out and marry you the
same day to show that I believe in you still."
At that Bessie was in floods of tears again. And again they cried in
each other's arms like children.
Then Alick, after drying his eyes in the darkness, put on a brave
air, and told her what she had to do.
"Listen to me now. This is a low conspiracy, but if we are to defeat
it, you must stick to your story. I shall have to put you in the
box, for you must leave the Court without a stain on your character.
First of all you must say...."
And then sitting by Bessie's side in the dark cell, with only the
candle looking in on them from the outside ledge of the grill, he
rehearsed the facts as they were to be given in Court--how by the
cruelty of her step-father she had been shut out of the house late at
night and had had to go elsewhere; how she had returned, being
unwell, and wishing her mother to nurse her, and how she had been put
to bed and had never left it until the constables came to take her
away.
Bessie listened in silence, gazing before her like a captured sheep,
and answering only by a nodding of her head.
"If the Attorney asks you anything else--no matter what--you must say
you know nothing about it---do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Say it after me then--'I know nothing about it.'"
Bessie repeated the words like a woman talking in her sleep---"'I
know nothing about it.'"
"That's all right. Leave the rest to me."
"You think I shall get off?"
"I'm sure of it. If the General Gaol is held next week, we'll be
married the week after."
"But, Alick?"
"Yes."
"Your father and sisters, will they not always cast it up at you that
your wife has been tried for...."
"Let them! If they do the Isle of Man will be dead to me for ever.
We'll go abroad--to America perhaps--and leave everything and
everybody behind us."
Bessie was crying once more, and Alick, to conceal his own tears, was
going off with great bustle.
"Good-bye! I'll be here again to-morrow. And oh, what do you think,
Bess? Great news! Stowell has been made Deemster. So if the good
Lord in Heaven will only keep that damned old Taubman in bed a little
longer with his rheumatism, Stowell will be on the bench and you'll
have a fair trial at all events. Good-bye!"
For the next half-hour Bessie sobbed with joy. Tell the truth and
destroy Alick's faith in her? Never! Never in this world!