II

As soon as the trial was over and Bessie, weeping bitterly, was taken

back to the cells, Fenella had left Castle Rushen. She was ashamed.

Remembering her wild outburst under the Attorney-General's

examination, she was reproaching herself bitterly.

Whatever Victor Stowell had done, what right had she to denounce him?

She of all others! In open Court too!

And then Gell! Although nobody else had understood her, he had done

so. He might have been living in a fool's paradise, but was it for

her her to reveal the awful truth to him? In public, too, and at

that harrowing moment?

To escape from the pain of self-reproach she kept on telling herself,

as she went back in the train, that Stowell had deceived her. Oh, if

he had only confessed, at any rate to her, she thought she could have

forgiven him in spite of all. But no, he had hidden everything down

to the last moment, and left her to find him out.

On reaching home she excused herself to old Miss Green and hurried up

to her bedroom. Her head ached and her heart was sore--the young

woman she had been working for had been found guilty and condemned.

She told her maid she was tired, and if anybody asked for her she was

not to be disturbed.

Two hours passed. Her heart was going through a wild riot of mingled

anger and love. It was like madness. She loved Stowell; she hated

him; she worshipped him; she despised him. At one moment she

recalled with a bitter laugh the mockery of his questioning of Bessie

Collister in the dock; at the next she remembered with scorching

tears the pathos of his sentencing her.

Obscure motives were operating in her soul to intensify her pain.

Jealous? She, jealous of that illiterate country girl who had

murdered her illegitimate child--what nonsense! No, her idol was

broken. She had set it so high and now it was in the dust.

She expected Stowell to come to her as soon as his Court was over.

Again and again she raised her head from her wet pillow to listen for

the sound of his car on the drive. Yet when a knock came at her door

and her maid announced the arrival of the Deemster (never dreaming

that the injunction against callers had been intended to apply to

him) her first impulse was to send him away.

"Say I'm unwell and can't see him," she cried from her bed.

But at the next moment she was up and whispering at the door,

"Show Mr. Stowell into the library and tell him I shall be down

presently."

Her voice was hoarse; her face was aflame; her eyes were red from

persistent weeping. No water could sponge away those marks of her

emotion. Never mind! He should see how he had made her suffer. She

would go downstairs and charge him, face to face, with his deceit and

hypocrisy, and then--then fling herself into his arms.

But when she opened the library door and saw him standing on the

hearthrug, with head down and a look of utter abasement, her courage

failed her. She dare not look twice at his ravaged face, so she sank

on to the sofa and covered her eyes with her hands.

Several minutes passed in which neither of them spoke. There was no

sound except that of his laboured breathing and of the ticking of the

clock on the mantelpiece. "If he does not speak soon," she thought,

"I shall break into tears and fly out of the room."

But she did not move, and at last came his voice, humble and broken,

and thrilling through and through her:

"Fenella!"

She did not answer; she could not; and again, after another moment of

silence, he said,

"Fenella, I have come to ask you to forgive me."

She wanted to burst out crying, and to prevent herself from doing so

she broke into a flood of wrath.

"Forgive you?" she said. "Ask that poor creature in Castle Rushen to

forgive you--that poor girl whom you have just condemned for a crime

that is the consequence of your own sin."

He did not reply for a moment, and then came the same humble,

unsteady voice, saying,

"No doubt you are quite right, quite justified, but if you knew

everything--that I could not help myself--that it was the law...."

"Oh, I know nothing about your laws," she cried, leaping up and

crossing the room, "but they are unjust and barbarous and against

reason and humanity if they allow a girl to be condemned to death for

a crime like that while the Judge who was the first cause of it sits

in judgment on his own victim."

"You are right there too," said Stowell, "but if you knew how I tried

to avoid sitting on the case, and only allowed myself to do so at

last in the hope of seeing justice done and thereby making some sort

of amends....

"Amends!" cried Fenella. "What amends can there be for a wrong like

that? Oh, I hate people who think they can make amends for one fault

by committing another."

There was silence again for a moment and then Stowell said,

"You are right there also. There is a kind of wrongdoing that cannot

be atoned for. I see that now. But if you knew how I have suffered

for it and still suffer....

"Suffer? Why shouldn't you suffer? Isn't that poor girl suffering?

Hasn't she suffered all along? And whatever you do for her now,

won't she go on suffering to the last day and hour of her life?"

He dropped his head still lower under the lash of Fenella's scorn.

"That is not all either," she said in a broken voice, sitting on the

sofa again and brushing her handkerchief over her eyes. "Perhaps

that girl is not the only one who is suffering. I wanted to think so

well of you, to be so proud of you. You were to be the defender of

women, fighting their battle for them when they were wronged and

helpless. And when you became a Judge .... Oh, I cannot bear to

think of it. You have disappointed and deceived me. You are not the

man I took you to be."

Outside the sun was setting. A dull ray from it was falling on his

haggard face and brushing her bronze-brown hair.

"I thought you loved me too. It was so sweet to think you loved

me--me only--never having loved anybody else. Every woman has felt

like that, hasn't she? I have anyway. Other men might be faithless,

but not you, not Victor Stowell. And yet, for the sake of your poor

fancy for this country girl...."

"Fenella!"

"Oh, what a fool I've been," she cried, leaping up again and dashing

the tears from her eyes. "Forgive you? Never while that girl lies

in prison as the consequence of your sin."

Stowell could bear no more. Stepping forward, he laid hold of

Fenella by the shoulders, and approaching his face to her face he

said,

"Listen to me, Fenella. I have done wrong--I know that. I am not

here to excuse or defend myself, and if your heart does not plead for

me I have nothing to say. But I swear before God that I have loved

you with all my soul and strength, and if it hadn't been for that...."

"Loved me!" cried Fenella, between a laugh and a sob. And then in

the wild delirium of the sheer woman, she said,

"What proof of your love have you given to me compared to the proof

you have given to that girl? Oh, when I think of it I could almost

find it in my heart to envy her. I do envy her. Yes, degraded and

shamed and condemned and in prison as she is, I envy her, and could

change places with her this very minute. I would have given you

anything in the world rather than this should be--anything, my

honour, myself...."

"Fenella!"

"Let me go! You are driving me mad. Leave me. I hate you. I

despise you. You have broken my heart. I thought you were brave and

true, but what are you but a common...."

"Fenella!"

"Coward! Hypocrite! Let me go!"

But she had no need to wrench herself away from him. His hands fell

from her shoulders like lead, and at the next moment she was gone

from the room.

He stood for a while where she had left him with the echo of her

stinging words ringing in his ears. Bitter, unjust and cruel as they

had been, he was struggling to excuse her. She did not understand.

Bessie had not told her all. Presently she would come back and ask

his pardon.

But she did not come, and after a while (it seemed like an eternity),

feeling crushed, degraded, trampled upon, dragged in the dust and

wounded in his tenderest affections, he left the room and the house.

Outside, where his automobile was standing, he still lingered,

expecting to be called back. It was impossible that Fenella would

let him part from her like this. He knew where she was--in the

Governor's smoking-room which overlooked the drive. At the last

moment she would knock at the window and cry, "Stay!"

Slowly he moved around his car, opening the bonnet, touching the

engine, starting it, pulling on his long driving gloves. But still

she gave no sign, and at length he prepared to step into his seat.

Was this to be the end--the end of everything?

Meantime, Fenella, alone in her father's room and recovering from the

storm of her anger, was beginning to be afraid. She wanted to go

back to Stowell and say, "I was mad. I didn't know what I was

saying. I love you so much."

But her pride would not permit her to do that, and she waited for

Stowell to do something. Why didn't he burst through the door, throw

his arms about her, and compel her to forgive him?

She listened intently for a long time, but there came no sound from

the adjoining room. What was he doing? Presently she heard him

coming out of the library, walking with a firm step down the corridor

to the porch, opening the front door and closing it behind him.

Was he leaving her? Like this? Then he would never come back. She

heard his footstep on the gravel and looking through the window she

saw him, with his white face, raising his soft hat to wipe his

perspiring forehead, and then climbing into the car. Could it be

possible that he was going away without another word?

In spite of her jealousy and rage, she felt an immense admiration for

the man who, loving her as she was sure he did, was yet so strong

that he could leave her after she had insulted and humiliated him.

She wanted to throw up the window and cry, "Wait! I am coming out to

you."

But no, her pride would not permit her to do that either, and at the

next instant the car was moving away.

She watched it until it had disappeared behind the trees. Then she

turned to go back to her bedroom. At the foot of the stairs she met

Miss Green who, shocked at the sight of her disordered face, said,

"My goodness, Fenella! What has happened?"

In the plaintive voice of a crying child, Fenella answered,

"He has gone. I have driven him away."

Then she stumbled upstairs, locked the door of her room on the

inside, threw herself face down on the bed, burst into a flood of

tempestuous tears, and cried aloud to Stowell, now that he could no

longer hear her--

"Victor! Victor! My Victor!"