"Victor, I have something to tell you," said Fenella.
"Yes?"
They were in the library. She was looking feverish; he was feeling
ashamed, embarrassed and afraid.
"I have found out who was the friend of that poor girl."
He gazed at her without speaking.
"It will be a great shock to you--it was Alick Gell."
"No, no!"
"I'm sorry, dear. I knew you would be unable to believe it. But
it's true--terribly true."
Mrs. Quayle, the evening before, had said very little. Nobody had
called to see the girl while she stayed at her house, and nobody had
come to take her away. She, herself, had seen her off by the train,
and all the girl had told her was that she was going to a school at
Derby-Haven.
"But that was enough for me," said Fenella. "This morning I went
down to Derby-Haven and found there was only one school there. It is
kept by two maiden ladies named Brown. Simple old things, very timid
and old-fashioned. They were thrown into terrible commotion by my
call, and having read the reports in the newspapers they were at
first afraid to say anything. But after I had promised that they
should not be mixed up in the matter in any way, I got them to speak.
Mr. Alick Gell had brought the girl to their house. He had paid for
her, and they had always looked upon him as her intended husband. So
it's a certainty, you see--a shocking certainty."
Stowell was breathless.
"But my dear Fenella," he said, "this is a mistake. You are drawing
a false inference...."
But Fenella only shook her head.
"Yes. I knew your loyalty to your friend would compel you to say so.
But what do you think? I have since found that the fact is common
knowledge."
Returning in the train she had occupied a compartment with two
men--the strangest looking creatures she had ever seen in a
first-class carriage. One of them turned out to be the girl's
stepfather and the other a member of the House of Keys.
"Cæsar Qualtrough?"
"Cæsar? Yes, that was the name. They talked about the forthcoming
trial and didn't seem to mind my hearing them--perhaps wished me to.
The step-father (he spoke as if the whole case had been got up to
disgrace him) was complaining that he had not been called by either
side. But no matter, he would force himself upon the Court and
expose the real criminal--the Speaker's son. It was all a trick.
But it should not succeed. He would put the saddle on the right
horse, he would. And then they talked about you."
"What .... what about me?"
"That the report of your being too ill to sit was a lie. You were
not ill at all and never had been--the step-father knew better. You
were merely shirking your duty to save your friend in some way. But
that trick shouldn't succeed either, or the people should know what
Judges in the Isle of Man were. So you see you must sit on this
case, dear--if you are fit for it. You can't afford to have it said
that you have sacrificed your duty as a Judge to your personal
interests. At your first Court, too."
Stowell was in torture. In spite of the Governor's warning, an
almost overpowering impulse came to him to confess, to make a clean
breast of everything, there and then, and once for all.
"Fenella," he began (his breath was coming and going in gusts), "who
knows if the guilty man is Gell? It may be somebody else."
"Who else can it be?"
He tried to say "It is I," but hesitated--he could not shatter in a
word the whole world he lived in. At the next moment she was
praising his fidelity, which would not allow him to think ill of his
life-long friend.
"But he has no such delicacy," she said. "Knowing what he knows he
is still going to defend the girl, and that's equal to defending
himself, isn't it? How shocking!"
Stowell's shame at his moral cowardice reached the point of
abasement, and he dropped his head. Then, carried away by her own
pleading, Fenella put her arms about his neck, tenderly and
caressingly, and told him she knew well what a hard thing she was
asking him to do--to sit in judgment on his friend also, for that was
what it would come to. But she would love him for ever if he would
do it. It would be like the crown of all her hopes, the fulfilment
of all she had worked for, if in some way (he would know best how) a
poor girl who had sinned and suffered should have mercy shown to her,
and not be left alone in her shame, but have the partner of her sin
(no matter who he was or how near he came) standing side by side with
her.
There was a moment of silence. Stowell was like a man groping in the
dark of a black midnight. At length a light seemed to dawn on him.
If he sat on this case he could save an innocent man at all events.
"You _will_ sit, will you not?"
"Yes."
And then she kissed him.