CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE GRAVE OF A SIN

Nearly three hours later Stowell was at the Point of Ayre, where the head of the island looks into the sea. Leaving his car at the end of the last paved road he walked over the bent-strewn plain to where the tall, white, brown-belted light-house stands up against sea and sky. The light-houseman, who had just put out the light, seeing the Deemster approach, went down to meet him.

"May I go up to your lantern, Light-houseman? I've always wanted to see the sun rise from there."

"With pleasure, your Honour," said the Light-houseman, and he led the way up the circular stone stairway, through the eye of the light-house, with its glistening columns of bevelled glass, to the iron-railed gallery that ran like a scalf round its neck.

For a long half-hour Stowell walked to and fro there. He felt as if he were on the prow of some mighty ship, with the sea racing in white foam along the rocks on either side. Far below were the booming waves; the sea-fowl were calling in the midway air; the sky to the east was reddening; the day was striding over the waters and driving the trailing garments of the night before it, and the sea was singing the great song of the dawn.

At last, straining his sight to the south, he saw what he had come to see—a steamer with a red and black funnel. Kept back during the dark hours by the fog on the coast, she was now coming on at full-speed.

There was a pang in thinking that this was the last he was to see of the two who were aboard of her, but there was a boundless joy in it also. They were united; they were happy; they were safe; he had wiped out his offence against them.

He watched the vessel as she passed. She lurched a little as she went through the cross-current of the Point. But now she was out in the Channel; now she was heading towards the Mull of Galloway; now she was fading into the northern mist and seemed to be dropping off into another planet.

At half-past three Stowell was back in his car. He could go home now with a cleaner heart, a surer conscience. It was a beautiful morning. The sun had risen. It was slanting over his shoulder as he drove along the grass-grown road on the north-west coast, with the sea singing and dancing by his side over a stretch of yellow sand. The lambs were bleating in the fields and the larks were loud in the sky.

What relief! What joy! His car was bounding on—past the Lhen, the Nappin, the old Jurby church with its four-square tower on the edge of the cliff—going faster than he knew, faster and still faster, like a winged creature, parting the way as it went, making the road itself to fly open, and the hedges, the trees, and the sleeping farm-houses to slant off on either side, and coming round at last, as with the heart of a bride, to the big gates of Ballamoar.

Home once more!

As he slackened speed and slid up the drive the rooks were calling in the tall elms and the song-birds in the bushes were singing. As silently as possible he ran his car into the garage and crept into the house.

The blinds were down and the rooms were dull with a yellow light, like sunshine behind closed eyelids. The grandfather's clock on the landing was striking four. Only four hours since he had left Castletown!

The servants were not yet stirring, and he stepped upstairs on tiptoe, hoping to reach his room unheard, but as he passed Janet's door she called to him.

"Is that you, Victor?"

He answered, "Yes."

"How late you are, dear!"

"Don't waken me in the morning."

In his bedroom he was partly conscious that familiar things looked strange—or was it that another man had come back to them? He undressed rapidly and got into bed, drawing a deep breath. It was all over. Bessie Collister was gone. It was nearly impossible that she could ever be traced and brought back. A monstrous judicial crime had been prevented. He had been permitted to prevent it. And now for the long, long rest of a dreamless sleep.

But in the vague, intermediate half-world of consciousness before sleep comes, he was aware of another, a warmer and more secret motive. Fenella! "Tell him to come back to me!" Ah, no, not until he had wiped out his fault. But now he could go to her! He had broken down the barrier between them. He had buried his sin in the sea.

Thank God! Thank God!

And then sleep, deep sleep, and the breathless day coming on.

END OF FIFTH BOOK

SIXTH BOOK
THE REDEMPTION

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
THE BIRTH OF A LIE

Awakening in the "George" in the early hours of morning, Fenella heard a noise outside her window that was like the running of a shallow river over a bed of small stones. She knew what it was. It was the sound of the feet of the people who were coming in crowds to stand outside the Castle walls and watch the slow-moving fingers of the clock, until the hoisting of the black flag over the tower should tell them that the invisible presence of Death had come and gone.

When, as the clock was striking six, she crossed the market-place on her way to the Castle, she found this crowd in great commotion, hurrying to and fro and calling to each other in agitated voices.

"Is it true?"

"So they're saying."

"God bless my soul!"

The Castle gate was open and people had penetrated as far as the Portcullis. An Inspector of Police, coming out hurriedly, commanded them to go back.

"Away with you! Is it play-acting you've come to look at? Smoking your pipes, too!"

But without waiting to see his orders obeyed he hastened away himself, shouting to somebody that he was going to knock up the telegraph office.

The court-yard, when Fenella reached it, though less crowded was as full of agitation. A blear-eyed man, who looked as if he had just awakened from a fit of intoxication, was walking aimlessly to and fro. It was Shimmin, the turnkey, but when Fenella asked him what had happened, he stared vacantly and made no answer. A very tall man, wearing a cloth cap over his head and ears and carrying a carpet-bag, was standing by the scaffold. This must be "long Duggie Taggart" and when Fenella, shuddering at sight of the man, asked him the same question, he shrugged his shoulders and turned away. At the foot of the draw-bridge the High Bailiff and the jailer were in fierce altercation.

"I know nothing about it, I tell thee, Sir."

"Then you are a blockhead and a fool!"

At length two elderly men, the Chaplain and the Doctor, came down the Deemster's stairs, and then the truth, which Fenella had partly surmised, became fully known to her. The condemned woman had escaped during the night. There would be no execution that day.

Through a tumult of mixed feelings, Fenella was conscious of a sense of immense relief. Her first thought was of Bessie's mother, and she turned back to take the news to her.

The little house in Quay Lane had its door still closed, but through the kitchen window, whereof the upper sash was partly down, came the singing of a hymn in tired and husky voices,

"Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly."

It was not immediately that Fenella could get an answer to her knocking, but at length the man of the house, in his ganzie and long sea boots, opened the door, still singing.

The little low-ceiled kitchen was full of people, and the close air of the place seemed to say that they had kept up their prayer-meeting the night through.

On a chair bedstead against the opposite wall, Mrs. Collister in her cotton nightcap, from which long thin locks of her grey hair were escaping, was rocking her body to the tune, while fumbling with bony fingers a Methodist hymn-book which lay open before her on the patchwork counterpane.

Fenella, with a warm heart for the old mother in her trouble, pushed through to the foot of the bed, but Mrs. Collister was terrified at the sight of her, thinking she was bringing bad tidings,

"Have they deceived me?" she cried. "Seven o'clock they said. Is it all over?"

"Be calm," said Fenella, and then she delivered her message. Bessie had gone from Castle Rushen. She was not to die that day.

A moment of vacant silence fell upon the room, such as seems to fall on the world when the tide is at the bottom of the ebb. With difficulty the old woman grasped what Fenella had said. Her watery eyes looked round at her people as if asking them to help her to understand. At length one of these cried,

"Glory to God! It's the answer to our prayers."

And then the truth seemed to descend on the poor broken brain like a healing breath from heaven. Stretching out her match-like arms, she seized Fenella's hands and said,

"I know who thou art. Thou art the Governor's daughter. Is it the truth thou'rt telling me?"

"Indeed it is."

"My Bessie is out of prison?"

"Yes, and nobody knows what has become of her."

A wild cry of joy burst from the old woman's throat.

"Liza! Liza Killey, wilt thou believe me now? Didn't I tell thee it was the old Dempster himself that the Lord had sent to take my child out of prison?"

A wave of new life seemed to come to her, and throwing back the clothes she struggled out of bed (her blue-veined legs and feet showing bare under her cotton nightdress) and went down on her knees to pray. But her prayer was drowned by the husky voices of her companions, who had by this time raised a hymn of thanksgiving.

Fenella turned to go, and the man and woman of the house followed her to the door.

"What was that she said about the Deemster?"

They told her what had happened the night before—how the old woman had escaped into the streets and the Deemster had brought her back to the house.

"Are you sure it was the Deemster?"

"We thought so then, but she thrept us out it was his father who is dead and buried, and now we don't know in the world if it was or wasn't."

The singers were singing in triumphant tones—

"God moves in a mysterious way,
    His wonders to perform."

Fenella, who had begun to tremble, turned back to the hotel. The market-place was full of people, who were pouring into it from every thoroughfare. On reaching her room she locked the door, pulled down the window-blind, sat on the bed, covered her eyes, and tried to think out what had happened.

The noise outside was like the surge of the sea, and like the surge of the sea was the tumult in her heart and brain.

Could it be possible that Victor Stowell had helped Bessie Collister to escape? She remembered what he had said to her father—that if any attempt were made to carry out the sentence he would prevent it. She remembered what she had said to him—that never could there be anything between them while that girl lay in prison. He had been in Castletown the night before, and he was the only man in the island who could have access to the Castle without an order from the Governor or the Chief Constable.

But a Judge to break prison! What would be the end of it? Why had he done this incredible thing, risking everything? Was it solely because he could not allow that unhappy girl, who had suffered so much for him already, to go to the gallows? Or was it, perhaps, because she herself had said....

Suddenly a great quickening of her love for Stowell came over her. If she had stumbled upon his secret she would protect it.

"But what can I do?" she asked herself.

At one moment it occurred to her to run back to Quay Lane and warn the good people there to say nothing more about the Deemster. But no, that might awaken suspicion. They thought Bessie's escape was due to supernatural agencies, that it had come as an answer to their prayers—let them continue to think so.

At seven o'clock she was in the train for Douglas and the telegraph poles were flying by. She must know what the Governor was doing. But whatever her father might do her own course was clear.

She must stand by Victor now, whatever happened.

II

In the cool sunshine of the early May morning Government House lay asleep. The gardener was mowing a distant part of the lawn when he saw a carriage drive rapidly up to the porch. Two gentlemen got out of it, and in less time than it took him to empty his grass-pan into his wheelbarrow they rang three times at the door.

Inside the house nobody was yet stirring except old John, the watchman, who was drawing the curtains and opening the windows. He heard the bell and thought the postman had brought a registered letter. In his cloth shoes he was shuffling to the vestibule when the bell rang again and yet again.

"Traa de looiar" ("Time enough"), he growled, but his voice fell to a more deferential tone when he opened the door, and saw who was there.

"Our apologies to His Excellency, and say the Attorney-General and the Chief Constable wish to see him immediately on urgent business."

The two men stepped into the smoking-room, which was still dark with the blinds down and rank with last night's tobacco smoke.

A few minutes later, the Governor entered in his dressing-gown over his pyjamas and with his bare feet in his heelless slippers. And then the Attorney told him—the young woman who was to have been executed that morning had escaped.

"Good God, no!"

"Only too true, Sir. Colonel Farrell has had an urgent telegram from his Inspector at Castletown."

"When did it happen?"

"During the night. The jailer says he locked her up at eleven and when he opened the cell at five the prisoner was gone."

"Where is the jailer?"

"At the Castle still," said the Chief Constable, "but I've told the police to send him up immediately."

The Governor rose from the seat into which he had dropped and walked to and fro.

"Such a blow to the authority of the law—the escape of a prisoner on the eve of her execution!" said the Attorney.

"Such a handle to the disorderly elements, too!" said the Chief Constable.

"Good Lord, don't I know? Let me think! Let me think!"

The Governor drew up one of the window blinds and his eyes fell on a steamer lying by the pier with smoke rising lazily from her black and red funnels.

"If the woman escaped only a few hours ago," he said, "she cannot have left the island yet. Have you given orders that the passengers by the morning steamer shall be watched?"

"Not yet, sir."

"Do so at once. If that fails, telegraph to your police in every town and parish. Good gracious, in this pocket-handkerchief of an island it ought to be possible to re-capture an escaped prisoner in a day, even if she lies like a toad under a stone."

"We'll leave no stone unturned, sir."

"A woman! A mere girl! Unless the jailer or his people deliberately opened the doors for her she must have had assistance."

"That's what I say, your Excellency."

"Have you any idea who helped her?"

"No .... that is to say...."

"Where's young Gell, the Advocate?"

"In his rooms in Athol-street .... I presume."

"Find out for certain. Come back at four this afternoon and bring that blockhead of a jailer with you. And listen" (the men were leaving the room), "try to keep this ridiculous thing quiet. If it gets into the papers across the water all England will be laughing at us."

The Governor was again at the window, watching the Attorney-General's carriage going rapidly down the drive, when he saw a hackney car, containing Fenella, coming up to the house.

That sight started a new order of ideas. He remembered Stowell's threat—"If you order that girl's execution, it shall never be carried out, because I shall prevent it." For three days he had understood this to mean that the Deemster would appeal over his head to the Imperial authorities. But Stowell had not done so—he wasn't such a fool, he had remembered the bedevilments of his own position. So the Governor had dismissed the thought, and his anger at the son of his old friend had subsided. But now the threat came back on him with a new interpretation. Could it be possible? Such an unheard-of thing?

As soon as Fenella entered the house he called her into his room and shut the door behind her.

"You have just come from Castletown?"

"Yes, father."

"Then you know what has happened?"

"Yes."

"Can you throw any light on it?"

"Light on it?"

"I mean .... have you seen anything of Stowell since we spoke of him last?"

"Nothing."

"Nor heard from him?"

"No."

"Do you think it likely that .... But it is impossible. No responsible person in his sense could do such a thing. It must be the other one."

"What other, father?"

"Young Gell, of course. He is the only man in the island who could wish that girl to escape—the only one who would be fool enough to help her to do so."

Fenella went to her room with a heart at ease. She was sorry for Gell, very sorry, but in the consuming selfishness of her love for Stowell she found a secret joy in the thought that suspicion was being diverted from the real culprit.

Victor was safe thus far. But what would he do himself? What was he now doing?

III

It was near to noon when Stowell awoke at Ballamoar. His bedroom (formerly his father's) faced to the south and flashes of sunshine from the chinks of the window curtains were crossing the bed on which he lay with his head on his arm.

It was a startling moment.

His long sleep had washed his brain as in a spiritual bath, and with the awakening of his body his conscience had awakened also. The events of the previous night rolled back on him like a flood, and now, for the first time, he saw what he had done.

To prevent the law from committing a crime he had committed a crime against the law! He, the Judge, sworn to uphold Justice, had deliberately betrayed it! Had anything so monstrous ever been heard of before?

After a while, through the deafening buzzing of his brain, he became aware of the droning sound of voices in the room below, and then of their sharp clack as the speakers (they were Janet and Joshua Scarff) stepped out of the house to the gravel path in front of it.

"No, don't waken his Honour, Miss Curphey. He hasn't been well lately, and sleep does no harm to anyone. Besides he'll hear the bad news soon enough."

"'Deed he will, Mr. Scarff."

"It will be a terrible shock to him—especially if my suspicions about a certain person prove to be justified. But that's the way, you see—one act of wrong-doing leads to another. Pity! Great pity!"

It was out! Stowell felt as if the bed under him were rocking from the first tremor of an earthquake.

Half-an-hour later he was at breakfast downstairs. For a long time, Janet was trying to break the news to him. At last it came. The young woman who was to have been executed that morning had escaped. Joshua Scarff had had it from the Inspector at Ramsey—it was being telegraphed all over the island.

For the sake of appearances Stowell made an exclamation of surprise, despising himself for doing so and feeling as if the toast in his mouth were choking him.

"It's impossible not to be glad," said Janet, "that the poor guilty creature has escaped the gallows, but Joshua thinks things are not likely to end there."

"And what does he say?...."

"He says she must have had an accomplice, and when the man is found out it will be the worse for both of them."

"And who .... who does Joshua think...."

"Alick Gell. It seems he put appearances against himself at the trial, poor boy!"

Instead of going to town that day, as he had intended to do, Stowell rambled through the trackless Curraghs. He was trying to be alone with the melancholy swish of the sally bushes and the mournful cry of the curlews. But his anxiety to know what was being done brought him back to the house. Hearing nothing there, he walked to the village for a copy of the insular newspaper. He found some excuse for speaking to everybody he met on the road—on other subjects, though, always on other subjects.

At the door of the little general store, with its mixed odour of many condiments coming out to him, he stopped and called,

"How's the rheumatism this morning, Auntie Kitty?"

"Aw, better, your Honour, a taste better to-day. But it's moral sorry I am to hear the bad newses you've had yourself, Sir. It's feeling it terrible you'll be, your Honour—you and the young man being the same as brothers. It will kill his mother—and her such a proud stomach. The woman couldn't see the sun for the boy, and she's been fighting the father all his life for him."

On his way back he met Cain, the constable, looking large and important.

"I'm sarching for them two runaways," he said, with his short asthmatical breathing, "and the Chief Constable is telling me I'll have to be finding them if they're lying like a toad under a stone."

Gell again! The report of the escape had passed over the island with the swift flight of a bird of prey—everywhere he could hear the flapping of its wings. And to the question of who could have assisted the young woman to escape from a place like Castle Rushen there was only one answer—Gell.

Towards nightfall Joshua Scarff called at Ballamoar on his way home from town. Things had turned out as he had expected—suspicion had fastened on Mr. Gell, and the Governor had ordered the police to scour the island for him.

"But everybody is sorry for your Honour. His friend! His bosom friend! Pity! Great pity!"

Gell! Always Gell! Again Stowell felt as if the earth were rocking beneath him. Where had his head been that he had not thought of this before—that in helping Alick Gell to go away with Bessie Collister he had put him into the position of the guilty man—guilty not only of the prison-breaking, but also of the earlier and uglier offence of being the girl's fellow-sinner?

He had thought he had buried his sin in the sea—had he only cast the burden of it upon Gell?

He recalled Alick's gratitude on going away, the undeserved praises which had cut to the heart, and then thought of Gell (far away in a foreign country) coming to hear of the evil name he had left behind.

What was Alick to think of him then? That what he had done had not been at the call of friendship, but of mere self-protection—to divert suspicion from himself, to remove the only witnesses against him, and thus to build his future life on the unprotected name of an innocent man?

"Must I let that lie run on without saying a word against it?"

And then Fenella! He had seen himself going to her and saying, "Now that the girl is no longer in prison the barrier between us is broken down." He had seen himself marrying her, and then rising higher and higher in the esteem of his people, with that brave woman by his side.

But now—what now?

Fenella would find him out! It was impossible that she could live long with a man who carried such a corroding secret without discovering it sooner or later. And when she had done so what would she think of him? A traitor to his friend and to the law! A Judge who had broken his oath! A wrong-doer, not a righter of the wronged, sitting in judgment upon others, yet himself a criminal! A man of honour to the outer world, a hypocrite in his own house; a pillar of the island in the eyes of his people, a liar in the eyes of his wife!

"No, God forbid it! I cannot let that lie run on. I cannot allow myself to be pilloried in life-long hypocrisy."

All the same he would wait to see what the Governor might do next. It was no good acting hastily.

CHAPTER FORTY
THE CALL OF A WOMAN'S SOUL

At four o'clock that day the Attorney-General and the Chief Constable had returned to Government House and were sitting, on either side of the Governor, with the jailer standing before them. Fenella stood by the window, apparently gazing into the garden but listening intently.

"Come now," said the Governor, "tell us what you know of this matter."

The jailer knew nothing. Changing repeatedly the leg on which he was standing and mopping his forehead with a coloured handkerchief, he protested absolute ignorance.

"After Miss Stanley left the Castle a piece after ten o'clock I locked the poor bogh in her cell...."

"Do you mean the prisoner?"

"Who else, your Excellency?"

"Then say the prisoner."

"Well, I locked the prisoner in her cell a piece after ten o'clock last night and when I went back at five this morning to take her a bite of breakfast...."

"Breakfast? Where was your female warder?"

"Mistress Mylrea? Sick of the heart since General Gaol. They're telling me she died last night, Sir."

"Where was your turnkey then?"

"Willie Shimmin? He went out on lave for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon and didn't return on the night, Sir."

"Do you mean to tell me you were alone in the Castle on the night before an execution?"

"Aw, yes, alone enough, Sir."

"Colonel Farrell!" said the Governor, turning sharply upon the Chief Constable.

That gentleman, although embarrassed, had many excuses. He had not been made aware of the situation, and if this blockhead had only communicated with the police-station....

"Well, well, enough of that now. Let us have the facts," said the Governor, and turning back to the jailer he said,

"Did anybody come to the Castle last night after Miss Stanley left it?"

"No, Sir, no!"

"And your keys? Did they ever leave your possession?"

"Never, Sir."

"After you locked the prisoner in her cell, what did you do?"

"I went back to the guard-room and sat by the fire, Sir."

"And fell asleep, I suppose?"

"I'll give in I slept a wink or two, Sir."

"Where were your keys while you were asleep?"

"On the table beside me, Sir."

"And when you awoke where were they?"

"In the same place, your Excellency."

"Were the gates of the Castle locked last night?"

"Aw, 'deed they were, Sir."

"And were they locked this morning?"

"They were that, Sir."

The Attorney-General, who had been leaning forward, dropped back.

"Extraordinary!" he said. "The whole thing has the appearance of the supernatural."

"Nonsense!" said the Governor. "Vondy, do you know Mr. Gell, the Advocate?"

"I'm sorry to say, Sir...."

"Never mind about sorry—do you?"

"I do, Sir."

"When did you see him last?"

"At General Gaol, when he was out of himself, poor man, and we had to lock him up for threatening the Dempster."

"Did he never come to the Castle afterwards to see the prisoner?"

"Never, Sir."

"Will you swear that he was not there last night?"

"I will—before God Almighty, Sir."

"Then, if the cell was locked all night and the Castle gates were locked, how do you account for the escape of your prisoner?"

The jailer smoothed the hair over his forehead and then said,

"Bolts and bars are nothing to the Lord, Sir."

The Governor gasped.

"Do you mean to say that while you were asleep before the fire in the guard-room an angel from heaven carried your prisoner through the Castle walls?"

"Aw, well .... I wouldn't say no to that, Sir. We're reading of the like in the Good Book anyway."

"Fenella," cried the Governor, "take this fool away and turn him out of the house."

When Fenella, who had been quivering all over, had left the room, followed by the jailer, the Governor turned to the Chief Constable.

"The woman was not on the morning steamer?"

"No, Sir."

"And What about Gell?"

"We broke open the door of his room in Athol Street and found he had gone."

"Ah! Have you come upon any trace of him elsewhere?"

"Yes; he slept at the Railway Inn at Ballaugh on Saturday night and took a ticket for St. John's by the first train on Sunday morning."

"Anything else?"

"The blacksmith at Ballasalla believes he saw him on Sunday evening going in the fog in the direction of Derby Haven."

"Aha! Did any fishing boat leave Castletown last night?"

"The Manx boats do not go out on Sunday, Sir."

"Any trading steamers then?"

"I don't know, Sir."

"Inquire at once. If your constables do not find the fugitives in the island we must send a 'Wanted' across the water."

"I'll draw one up, Sir."

"Got the necessary photographs?"

"One of the girl, which was found in the young man's rooms, Sir. Also one of the young man which we found in the girl's cell, but it is not of much use, being scratched and blurred as if it had been lying in water."

"No matter! The Deemster is sure to have another. I'll write and ask him to meet us here at eleven on Wednesday morning. He'll be able to help you to your personal description and issue the warrant at the same time."

II

Meantime, Fenella had taken the jailer into the drawing-room and closed the door behind them.

"Mr. Vondy," she said in a low voice, "you can trust me. Nothing you may say in this room will ever be repeated. Did not somebody come to Castle Rushen last night after I left it?"

The old man tried in vain to look into the big moist eyes that were on him, but at length he dropped his own and said,

"It is no use, miss. There will be no rest on me in the night unless I tell the truth to somebody. There can be no harm telling it to you neither—going to be the man's wife soon they're saying. It's truth enough, miss—somebody did come."

"Was it the Deemster?"

"It was that," said the jailer, and then he told her everything that had happened.

Fenella's head became giddy and her cheeks blushed crimson. In a flash she saw what had happened. Victor had deceived the jailer. Did the old man know it? Lowering her eyes she said,

"You didn't say this when the Governor questioned you—had you a reason for not doing so?"

"I had. The Deemster made me promise to say nothing."

And then came the other and still more degrading story—the story of the intimidation Stowell had put upon the jailer to keep his visit secret.

Fenella felt as if she would sink through the floor in shame, but all the same she found herself saying,

"You've known the Deemster all his life, haven't you?"

"I have. I was reared on the land," said the jailer, and then, raising himself to his full height, "I'm a Ballamoar myself, miss."

"Then you will keep the promise you gave him?"

"Trust me for that, miss."

"But if anything should happen to yourself as the consequence of last night's escape...."

"The father put me in the Castle and the son won't see them fling me out of it."

"But if he should be overruled by the Governor and unable to help you...."

"I'll take my chance with him. What's it they're saying?—the Ballamoar will out, miss."

Tears sprang to Fenella's eyes, but her heart beat high.

"Mr. Vondy," she said, "he has not been well lately, and perhaps he doesn't always know what he is saying. If you should ever come to think that what he told you was not the truth .... the whole truth, I mean...."

"Maybe so. I've been thinking as much myself since five this morning. But that's all as one to me, miss. Tell him Tommy Vondy will keep his word."

The jailer was gone, and Fenella was sitting with her hands over her eyes when she heard voices in the corridor and footsteps going towards the porch.

"You're right there, your Excellency" (it was the Attorney-General who was speaking). "The authority of law in this island has received a blow, and already the disorderly elements are stirring up strife."

"Who, for instance?"

"Qualtrough of the Keys and the man Baldromma."

"Farrell" (it was the Governor in a stern voice), "quash that instantly. If there's any rioting send for the soldiers from Castletown to assist your police."

"I will, your Excellency."

"And listen! Get rid of that blockhead of a jailer. Appoint somebody in his place and give him authority to employ his own warders. He'll have his prison full enough presently."

The closing of the outer door rang through the corridor, and at the next moment the Governor was in the drawing-room.

"Fenella," he said, "do you happen to know if Stowell has a photograph of young Gell, the Advocate?"

Before she had time to reflect, Fenella answered that he had. It was taken in America, and stood on the mantelpiece in the library at Ballamoar.

"But why?"

"Because I want him to bring it with him when he comes on Wednesday to issue the warrant."

"What warrant?"

"The warrant for the arrest of Gell, for breaking prison and aiding in the escape of the girl Collister."

"But, father, they are friends—life-long friends."

"What of that? Stowell is Deemster, and you heard the oath he took, didn't you? 'Without fear or friendship, love or gain.' His duty as a Judge is to administer Justice, and as long as I am here I'll see he does it."

III

During the remainder of that day and the whole of the following one Fenella was a prey to the cruellest perplexity. Would Victor Stowell issue that warrant for the arrest of the innocent man, being himself the guilty one?

How could he refuse? It would be his duty to issue the warrant—what excuse could he make for not doing so? And then what a temptation to let things go on as usual! Although he had broken prison, and therefore his oath as a Judge, how easily he might persuade himself that it had only been to snatch that poor girl from a wicked Statute!

Yet if Victor issued that warrant for the arrest of Gell he would be a lost man for ever after. No matter how high he might rise he would go down, down, down until his very soul would perish.

"It cannot be! It must not be! It shall not!"

She wanted to run to Ballamoar and say, "Don't do it. If you have done wrong confess and take the consequences."

Oh, what did she care about their quarrel now? It was no longer Bessie Collister's life, but Victor Stowell's soul that was in peril.

But no, she could not ask him to act under compulsion. He must act of his own free will. In the valley of the shadow of sin the guilty soul must walk alone.

"But is there nothing I can do for him?" she asked herself.

Yes, there was one thing—one thing only. She could pray. For long hours on the night before Stowell was to come to Government House Fenella knelt in her bed and prayed for him.

"O God help him! God help him! Help him to resist this great temptation."

At length peace came to her. Somewhere in the dead waste of the night she seemed to receive an answer to her prayers.

"He'll do the right, whatever it may cost him," she thought, and as the day was dawning she fell asleep.

But when she awoke in the morning she felt as if her heart would break. If Stowell confessed and took the consequences (as she had prayed he might do) he would be lost to her for ever. He would have to give up his Judgeship, be banished from the island, and become an outcast and a wanderer.

"Is that to be the end of everything between us? After all this waiting?"

Her eyes were full of tears when she looked at herself in the glass, but they were shining like stars for all that. An immense pity for Stowell had taken possession of her. An immense faith in him also. He must be the most unhappy man alive, but he was her man now; and nothing on earth should part them.

Going down to breakfast she met Miss Green on the stairs. The old lady was full of some breathless story of rioting in Douglas the evening before. How remote it all sounded! She hardly heard what was being said to her.

Coming upon the maid in the corridor she said,

"The Deemster is to call to-day, Catherine. Tell him I wish to see him before he sees the Governor."

In the breakfast-room her father was looking over a printer's proof on a sheet of foolscap paper. It was headed with the Manx coat-of-arms and the words "ISLE OF MAN CONSTABULARY," and had an empty space near the top for a block to be made from a photograph.

"But that is of no consequence now," thought Fenella, "no consequence whatever."

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

"Good heavens, what does it matter? A lie is only dangerous when it does some harm!"

Stowell awoke on the second day after the escape putting his situation to himself so. Where was the harm if Gell was suspected? He had gone with the woman he loved. He was happy. What would Alick care about the evil name he had left behind him?

"Then where's the harm?" he asked himself.

He would let things go on as usual—of course he would. Only he must make sure that the fugitives had got clear away.

Remembering that he had seen placards of the Atlantic sailings in the railway-station, he walked over to the station from the glen. It was all right—a big Atlantic liner was timed to leave Queenstown at twelve that day. It was now half-past twelve. Gell and Bessie would be out on the open sea by this time—steaming past Kinsale where the Manx boats fished for mackerel.

"Where's the harm?"

But just as he was leaving the station with a sense of security and even triumph, a train from Douglas drew up at the platform. The guard shouted something to the station-master; and, looking back, Stowell saw a crowd gathering about a first-class carriage.

Somebody was being assisted to alight. It was the Speaker. He was utterly helpless. Between two members of the House of Keys the stricken man was half led, half carried to a dog-cart that was waiting for him at the gate.

His mouth was agape, his legs were dragging behind him, and his large hands were shaken by senile trembling. He did not speak, but as he went by he looked up, and Stowell felt that from his red eyes a mute malediction was being thrown at him.

When the dog-cart had gone, with the Speaker stretched out in it, stiff as a dead horse, and one of the Keys to see him home, the other joined Stowell and walked down the road by his side.

"Then your Honour hasn't heard what has happened?"

"No. What?"

There had been a sitting of the Keys that morning. The debate had been on some new scheme of land tenure—a thinly disguised form of confiscation. The Speaker had opposed it passionately, saying a man had a right to keep what he had earned and hand it on to his children. Then Qualtrough (a firebrand who possessed nothing) had taunted him with the unfortunate affair of yesterday. Why did he want to hand on his land, his son having run away with the woman he had corrupted?

A terrible scene had followed. The Speaker had had one of his brain-storms. His neck had swelled until it was nearly as broad as his face. "Sit down, Sir," he had shouted, but Qualtrough had refused to do so. At length, overcome by the clamour of his enemies and the silence of his friends, the Speaker had risen to resign. Since he could not maintain the authority of the chair he had no choice but to get out of it.

It had been a pitiful spectacle. None of them who were fathers had been able to look at it with dry eyes. The old man was trembling like a leaf and his legs seemed to be giving way under him.

"They say the sins of the fathers are visited-upon the children, but maybe it's as true the other way about. I'm going blind and deaf. The sands of my life are running out...."

He swayed forward and they thought he would have fallen on his face, but the Secretary of the House caught him in his arms, and then two of them were nominated to bring him home.

"Sorry to say it to your Honour, being his friend," said the member of the Keys, as they parted at the turn of the road, "but that young fellow has something to answer for."

That lie had done harm then! Was this the mystery of sin—that it must go on and on, from consequence to consequence, deep as the sea and unsearchable as the night?

On returning to Ballamoar, Stowell found Janet in great agitation. Mrs. Gell had sent across to ask if Robbie could run into Ramsey to fetch Doctor Clucas. The doctor had come and gone. The Speaker had had a stroke. It was his second. The third would almost certainly prove fatal.

All that day Stowell was shaken by a chill terror. If the Speaker died would Alick Gell come back to claim his inheritance? If so he would hear it said on all sides that he had killed his father by the disgrace he had brought on him.

What then? Would he tell the whole truth under that terrible temptation, and thus bring down Stowell himself to ruin and extinction?

"But what nonsense I'm talking," thought Stowell.

Gell could never come back, because Bessie could never do so. Then who was to know that it was a lie that Gell had killed his father?

Suddenly came the thought, "I am to know."

This fell on him like a thunderbolt. How was he to marry Fenella with a thought like that in his heart? It would be with him night and day. He might even blurt it out in his sleep. "Assassin! It was I who killed the old man by letting that lie go on."

Feeling feverish and unable to remain indoors, he went out to walk on the gravel path in front of the house. The fresh air revived him and he took possession of himself again.

"If the Speaker dies it will be the act of God," he thought.

He would be in no way responsible. Neither would Gell. If rumour charged the son with killing the father it would be a lie—a damned lie, manufactured by Fate, the great liar.

It was not as if Gell were in any danger—the danger of arrest for instance. That would be different. But Gell was in no danger—none whatever.

"Therefore bury the thing! Bury it and go on as usual," he told himself.

The evening was closing in. It was beautiful and limpid. With a high step Stowell was walking to and fro on the path. Visions were rising before him of Gell and Bessie Collister on the big liner, ploughing their way through the darkening ocean to that free continent "where the clouds sailed higher"—Archibald Alexander and his sister Elizabeth going out to the new world to begin a new life.

He had visions of Fenella too—how he would go up to Government House to-morrow morning. "Tell him to come back to me," she said to Janet, and now he would go. How happy he was going to be!

"Surely I've a right to some happiness after all I've gone through."

He gave himself up to the intoxication of living by anticipation through those most blissful moments to a man and woman who love each other—the first moments of reconciliation after a quarrel.

Night had fallen. It was very dark. The late birds were silent, and only the soft young leaves of May were rustling in the darkness overhead with that gentleness that is like the whispering of angels. All at once a red light jogged up from the gate, making shadows among the trees that bordered the drive.

"Good evenin', Dempster! A letter for you, Sir."

It was Killip the postman.

"Thank you, Mr. Killip," said Stowell, taking the letter. He could not see it in the darkness, but at the touch of the large envelope a heavy foreboding came over him.

"I suppose you've heard about that affair, your Honour?"

"What affair?"

"Tommy Vondy. He's got himself kicked out of the Castle for letting that girl escape. The gorm! He's my first cousin, and he's in his seventy-seven, but he was always a toot, was Tommy!"

"Good-night, Mr. Killip."

"Good-night, your Honour!"

When Stowell returned to the porch he looked at his letter by the light of the lamp on the landing. It was from the Governor. He went into the Library and tore it open.

II

"DEAR STOWELL,—Of course you have heard what has happened. The escaped prisoner must be recaptured and dealt with according to law. And not she only, but her accomplice also. You know who that is—young Gell. The evidence against him is overwhelming. We have traced him almost to the door of the Castle on Sunday evening, and find, too, that a trading steamer left Castletown late the same night. There can hardly be a doubt that the fugitives sailed in her. We must find where she has gone to and bring her passengers back.

"Come here to-morrow morning to issue the necessary warrant and assist Farrell to the 'distinguishing marks' which may be needful for Gell's identification. I know there is a certain risk in re-opening this wretched inquiry. I had hoped to bury it once for all when I decided on what you thought the extreme step of sending the guilty woman to the gallows. But law and order must be upheld, and the sooner we can silence the people, who are saying we are winking at the corruption of justice to spare the son of the Speaker and the friend of the Deemster, the better for everybody.

"Be here at eleven. We (the Attorney and the Chief Constable are coming) will be waiting for you. Good Lord, haven't you been long enough away from this house anyway? If there are strained relations between you and Fenella let them be faced squarely and straightened out at once—Yours, etc.,

"JOHN S. STANLEY, "Brig.-Gen., K.C.B.

"P.S.—Fenella says you have a photograph of Gell which was taken in America some years ago. It is probably the only one on the island, and therefore invaluable to Farrel at this moment. Bring it with you—don't forget."

Stowell was struck with stupor. Alick Gell was in danger, then, and the whole situation was different.

Raising his eyes after reading the Governor's letter he saw Gell's photograph on the mantelpiece in front of him. At that sight a flame of passion took possession of him, and snatching up the picture he flung it in the fire.

"No, by God!" he said aloud. And if Farrell ever asked him for "distinguishing marks" towards Gell's identification he would take him by the throat and choke him.

But what about the warrant? Any Justice of the peace might issue it, but if the Governor asked him to do so the request would be equal to a command. Suppose he did, what would be the result? Bessie would be brought back and executed. Worse than that, even worse in its different way, Gell would be arrested and tried—perhaps by him, and under his warrant!

"No, no, no! It would be a crime—a base, cowardly, infamous, abominable crime!"

The veins of his forehead swelled as he thought of the trial. It would be more terrible than the other one. To sit in judgment on an innocent man, being himself the guilty one—not Jeffries, or Braxfield, or Brandon or Harebottle or any of the bewigged barbarians whose names befouled the annals of jurisprudence had done anything so awful.

"Never," he thought. "Never in this world."

Yet what alternative had he? After dinner (he had tried to eat to keep up appearances before Janet) he drew to the fire and tried to think things out. He had sat long hours in pain, and the fire had died down, when a kind of melancholy peace came to him and he thought he saw what he had to do.

He had to get up early in the morning, reach Government House before the others had arrived, see the Governor alone and say to him in secret,

"I cannot issue this warrant for the arrest of Alick Gell for breaking prison to procure that girl's release because I did it."

What would happen then? The Governor (he was a just man if a hard one) would say,

"In that case, you cannot be a Judge in this island any longer."

But that would be all. Out of consideration for his daughter, and perhaps for the man who was to become his daughter's husband, the Governor would go no farther. Some show he might make of publishing the police notice, but he would never send to a foreign country.

There would be no scandal. The public would know nothing. They had heard that the new Deemster had been unwell, and would be told that his health had broken down altogether, and he had had to resign his office. It would be a month's talk, and then—Time would cover up the whole miserable story in the merciful vein in which it hides so many of our misdoings.

And Fenella? He would tell Fenella also. It would be a shock to her, but she would be on his side now. She would see that he had only tried to prevent a judicial murder, to secure the happiness of two unhappy creatures who, but for him, would have been plunged in misery. They would marry and go away from the island, to Switzerland perhaps, and live there for the rest of their lives.

"Yes, that's it, that's it," he told himself.

It was a cruel comforting—like the surgeon's knife, which, while taking away a man's disease, takes some of his life-blood also.

He thought of his father, how proud the old Deemster had been of his judicial position and how anxious that his son should succeed to it—it was pitiful. He thought of Fenella, what great things they had planned to do when he became a Judge, and now all their hopes had fallen to dust and ashes—it was agonising.

Was it necessary? Inevitable? To be cast aside on life's highway in suffering and shame everlasting; to be like a wretched ship that lies at the bottom of the sea, swaying to the ground-swell below, and moaning like a lost soul to the moans of the other wrecks in the womb of the ocean?

It was not as if he had injured anybody. He had done harm to nobody, and nothing. Yet he must do what he had thought of. There was no help for it.

It was late. The household was asleep. The log fire he had been crouching over had fallen to ashes on the hearth. He was shivering and he got up to go to bed. Before leaving the library he sat at the desk under his mother's picture and wrote—

"Please call me at six. I must take the first train to Douglas."

He was laying this on the table on the landing, lighting his candle and putting out the lamp, when he heard wheels on the carriage drive, and then a loud ringing at the front door bell.

Who could have come at this time of night? Candle in hand he went down and opened the door.