Meanwhile Fenella had been going through her own temptation. On the
night after the trial, having bathed her swollen eyes, she went down
to dinner. Her father looked searchingly at her for a moment, and,
as soon as they were alone, he said,
"Was it Stowell I saw driving towards the mountain road as I came up?"
"Perhaps it was," said Fenella.
"Then why didn't he stay to dinner?"
"Because .... I told him to go."
"Why?"
Fenella gulped down the lump that was rising in her throat and said,
"I have been deceived in him. He is not the man I supposed him to
be."
"Don't be a fool, my dear. I understand what you mean. It is his
conduct as a man, not as a Judge you are thinking of. But if every
woman in the world thought she had a right to make a scrutiny into
her husband's life before she married him there would be a fine lot
of marriages, wouldn't there?"
Crude and even coarse as Fenella thought her father's moral
philosophy, she found her self-righteousness shaken by it. Perhaps
she had been unfair to Stowell. But why didn't he come and plead his
own cause? She couldn't talk to her father, but if Victor came and
told his own story....
Victor did not come. For two days her pride fought with her love and
she thought herself the unhappiest woman in the world. Then to
escape from the pains of self-reproach she conceived the idea of a
fierce revenge upon Stowell. She would devote herself to his victim!
Yes, she would make it her duty to lighten the lot of the poor
creature he had ruined and deserted.
After a struggle, and many shameful tears, she went back to Castle
Rushen, little knowing what a scorching flame she was to pass through.
By this time Bessie was feeling no bitterness against Stowell. The
jailer had told her that the Deemster could not have acted otherwise.
The law compelled him to condemn her. But he had told the Jury to
recommend her to mercy, and now he would be writing to the King to
ask him to let her off.
"Aw, he's good, miss--he's real good for all."
"Do you say that, Bessie? After he has betrayed you?" said Fenella,
"Betrayed? I wouldn't say that, miss."
"But he .... he took you to his rooms?"
"What else could he do, miss? All the inns were shut and it was
raining, and I had nothing in my pocket."
"But .... having taken advantage of your homelessness and poverty, he
afterwards cast you off?"
A mysterious wave of injured vanity struggled with Bessie's shame and
she said,
"'Deed he didn't, then. He wanted to marry me."
"Marry you .... did you say marry...."
"Yes, he did, and that was why he sent me to school."
"But afterwards .... afterwards he changed his mind and turned you
off .... I mean turned you over to somebody else?"
"'Deed no," said Bessie, with her chin raised. "It was me that gave
him up after I found I was fonder of Alick."
Breathing hard, scarcely able to speak, with the hot blood rushing to
her cheeks, Fenella compelled herself to go on.
"Did he know then that you...."
"No, miss, and neither did I, nor Alick, nor anybody."
"And when .... when was it that you went...."
"To his rooms in Ramsey? The first Saturday in August, miss."
Fenella went home, happy, miserable, tingling with shame and yet
thrilling with love also. Stowell's victim had brought her heart
back to him.
It was just because he had loved her more than he had loved that girl
in prison that the worst had happened. It was just because she
herself had persuaded, constrained and almost compelled him that he
had sat on the case, not fully knowing what was to be revealed by it.
This lasted her half-way home in the train, and then her wounded
pride rose again. After all Victor had been faithless to the love
with which she had inspired him. If a man loved a woman it was his
duty to keep himself pure for her. Victor had not done so, therefore
she would never forgive him--never!
The Governor's carriage met her at the Douglas station, and when
(wiping the scorching tears from her eyes) she reached Government
House, she found another carriage standing by the porch.
"Miss Janet Curphey is here to see you, miss," said the maid.