"Well, I'm going to see this Mrs. Quayle on my way home to Government
House. She'll be able to tell me how long the girl stayed with her,
who took her away, and where she went to."
Stowell dropped his head, feeling that he wanted to escape from the
room, and Fenella (indignantly, passionately, vehemently) went on to
denounce the guilty man.
"Of course the girl is shielding him. A woman always does that. I
should do it myself if I were in the same position. But oh, how I
should like to find him out! Even if he has taken no part in the
actual crime, how I should like to punish him--to expose him! You
must sit on this case--you really must, dear."
When the time came for Fenella to go Janet took her upstairs to look
at some new decorations that had been made in the room that was to be
her boudoir. Stowell remained in the library, and the sound of
Fenella's step on the floor above beat on his stunned brain with the
drumming noise of a train in a tunnel.
He had a sense of cowardice which he had never felt before. At one
moment he wanted to tell Fenella everything, thinking that would be
the end of his tortures. But at the next he reflected that it would
be the beginning of hers--inflicting an incurable wound upon her
affection. And then if Bessie were going to be acquitted, as seemed
possible (the evidence being so unconvincing), why should he enlarge
the area of the shameful secret?
When Fenella returned (saying, as she came downstairs, how beautiful
her room was and how proud she would be of it) he took her out to the
carriage.
"Do you remember," she whispered (she had recovered her gay spirits,
the coachman was on the box), "do you remember the first time you saw
me off from here?"
He nodded and tried to smile.
"I was too bashful to shake hands and you were too shy to look at me."
And being seated in the carriage and the door closed on her, she said,
"By the way, wouldn't you like to drive over with me to Mrs. Quayle
if I brought you home again?"
"No, no .... I mean...."
She laughed merrily. "Oh, very well! You've refused me again! I'll
remember it, Sir."
After the carriage had disappeared at the turn of the drive, Stowell
went up to his room, shut the door behind him and covered his face in
his hands.
Fenella hunting him down! Blindly, unconsciously, innocently, while
urging him, entreating him, almost compelling him to sit on the case.
The woman he loved and who loved him was trying to destroy him. Was
this to be his punishment?
Mrs. Quayle? No, she would say nothing. If she thought it would
injure his mother's son no power on earth would prevail upon her to
speak. But sooner or later, by one means or other, Fenella would
find out, and then....
"God be merciful to me, a sinner!" he moaned, smothering the sound of
the words behind his hands.
Could he sit in judgment on Bessie Collister's case with all the
forces of the defence (inspired by Fenella) directed towards branding
the Judge as the real criminal? Impossible! Yet what could he do?
At length an idea occurred to him. He would go up to Government
House, tell the whole truth to the Governor and ask to be relieved of
his duty. It would be a terrible ordeal, but there was no escape
from it.
"Yes, I will go up to the Governor in the morning."