Stowell looked up quickly and a stifling recollection of Fenella's
last words ("If you have to go to prison, I will follow you") came
surging back on him.
"Is it .... is it .... _she_?" he faltered.
"Yes."
That night, when Stowell's supper was brought to him, he sent it away
untouched. But the morning broke fair on his sleepless eyes, for he
had made up his mind what to do.
A pale ray of reflected sunshine from the eastern wall of the
court-house was on the upper part of his cell, and he could hear the
voices of children who were playing on the shore.
He asked for a candle, pen and ink and paper, and sat down to write a
letter.
"My DEAR FENELLA,--They have told me what you have done and I
cannot bear to think of it. When it became necessary to do what
I did, I knew I should have to give up all hope of you, and since
doing so I have suffered as few men can ever have suffered
before. But if you remain in this place I shall never know
another hour's sleep by night or rest by day. I shall feel that
in surrendering to Justice I was not really doing a courageous
act, as perhaps I thought, but a cowardly one, because I was
throwing half the burden of my sins on to you, who are innocent
of any of them. That thought would break my heart."
He paused. The sea outside was singing on the shore; the children
were laughing at their play.
"Fenella, at this last moment I must tell you something. Ever
since I came to care for you, it has been the dearest wish of my
heart that, God helping me, I should make your life a happy
one--that, whatever happened to me, in a world so full of cloud
and shadow, you should live in the sunshine. And now that you
follow me here, to this prison, this tomb .... it is too much. I
cannot bear it.
"Go home, dear. Good-bye and God bless you! Don't let me regret
the impulse that brought me here. If it was right and true I
must bear my punishment alone. Leave me the comfort of thinking
that at least your outer life goes on as if I had never shattered
it. We have had many happy hours together, but they are over.
Life is for ever closed against me. You can do nothing for me
now. It was sweet and good of you to come to this place, and I
feel as if I could give my heart's blood for one more look into
your dear face, but...."
He had written thus far when the key rattled in the lock of his cell.
The door opened and there was a flash of the jailer's lantern.
Instinctively, without looking up, Stowell covered his letter in his
blotting-paper and busied himself with both for a moment. When he
raised his eyes the lantern was on the table, but the jailer was gone
and somebody else was standing before him.
It was Fenella. She was in wedding dress, with the veil thrown back,
looking more lovely than in the most delirious of his dreams. At
first he thought it was a phantom, born of the preoccupation of his
tortured brain, and in a hushed whisper, trembling all over and
rising from his chair, he said,
"Fenella!"
She, too, was trembling, but she put on a brave air and even a little
of her gay raillery.
"Yes, it is Fenella. She has come, as she said she would, you know."
"But _why_ have you come?"
"Why? Don't you know what day this is, Victor? This was to have
been our wedding-day. It shall be, too."
"Do you mean it?"
"Look at me. Do you think I have dressed up like this for nothing?"
"But don't you see it is impossible?"
"Impossible? Don't you want me any longer then? You promised to
marry me, Sir--are you going to break your promise?"
She was laughing, but trying at the same time not to cry. Stowell's
voice grew thick and husky.
"Go home to your father's house, Fenella. That is the only place for
you."
"But my father has turned me out, so if you send me away also I
shan't have a roof to cover me."
"Is that true?"
She tried to laugh again with her old gaiety.
"Well .... nearly."
"You cannot live in a place like this, Fenella."
"Why not? I have the apartments of a Queen, and what was good enough
for her will be good enough for me, surely."
"But you forget--I am a prisoner, and if the Governor objects...."
"He doesn't. He has been told and has raised no objection."
"But there isn't a clergyman in the island who would marry a woman
like you to a man like me."
"Oh yes, there's one, and I have brought him with me."
"Who...."
"Somebody you did a beautiful thing for long ago, and who new wants
to do something for you--for me, I mean. Come in, Parson Cowley."
Then Stowell saw that the door was open and that Parson Cowley was
standing in the darkness beyond it. The old parson came into the
cell at Fenella's call, sober as a Judge, but with his face more
broken up by emotion than it had ever been by drink, for he had heard
everything.
"Parson Cowley," said Stowell, in a hoarse voice, "show her it is
impossible."
The old man swallowed something in his throat and answered,
"Nothing seems impossible to love, my son."
"But tell her that no good woman can live all her life with a
dishonoured man like me."
Again the old parson cleared his throat.
"I know one who has been doing so for forty years, Sir."
Stowell fell back on his chair and dropped his head over his arms on
the table. Parson Cowley, unable to bear more, slipped out of the
cell and pulled the door behind him.
Fenella and Stowell were then alone. She knew that her last chance
had come. She had to conquer him now or lose him for ever. It was
the primitive man against the primitive woman, only their age-long
positions were reversed, and with all the battery of her womanhood
she meant to win him. Stepping closer she said, in a caressing voice,
"Victor, you won't send me away from you, will you?"
"I shall always love you, Fenella," said Stowell, whose head was
still down. "I shall love you as an angel."
"But forgive me, dear, I am only a woman, and I want to be loved as a
woman first."
He raised his head and looked at her. Her eyes were glistening, her
lips were trembling, never before had she seemed to him so beautiful.
Feeling himself weakening he rose and turned away.
"I should never forgive myself, Fenella, if I allowed you to make
this sacrifice."
"What sacrifice? Everything I want in the world is within these
walls."
"Don't tempt me, Fenella. Go away, I beg of you."
"Victor, I am for you. You are for me. Do you want to rob me of the
only man in the world for me?"
His heart was beating fast.
"Go away, I tell you. I cannot trust myself any longer."
But the more he commanded her to go, the more her eyes glistened with
a look of triumph.
"If I am to go out of this place, you'll have to carry me out," she
said, "just as you carried me across the river in the glen."
He gasped, and then flung out at her in a torrent of words.
"Why do you come like this? Is it only to torture me with the
thought of what might have been? Haven't I done enough wrong to you
already? If I do this wrong also I shall hate myself. And the end
of that will be that I shall come to hate you also. I do hate you.
Go away! For God's sake go!"
Fenella, with gleaming eyes, took one step closer.
"Victor," she said, "you love me. You know you do. You have never
loved any other woman in the world--never for one single moment."
He looked back at her again. Her arms were stretched out to him; her
bosom was heaving; her lips were quivering and apart. He could
struggle no longer.
"Fenella!"
"Victor!"
She had conquered. They were clasped in each other's arms.