"Ah, here you are at last! Just in time! A breeze sprang up an hour ago, and the Captain would have gone without you but for me. The herring fleet have gone already. Look, there they are, sailing into the sunset."
Fenella was in high spirits. Having prevailed upon the Governor to let them have a real night with the herrings (turning the yacht into a fishing boat) she had borrowed a net and hired fishermen's clothes—oilskins and a sou'-wester for herself and a "ganzy" and big boots for Stowell.
It was impossible to resist the contagion of Fenella's gaiety. "Why try?" thought Stowell. It would be his last night of happiness. To-morrow he would have to bury it for ever.
In a few minutes, having cleared the harbour, they had opened the land on either side and were standing out for the fishing ground. Within two hours, in the midst of the fleet, they were sailing over the Carlingford sands, midway between the island and Ireland, and the sea-birds skimming above the water were showing them the shoal.
Dinner was over, and Stowell, in jersey and big boots up to his thighs, saw Fenella come on deck in her oilskin coat and sou'-wester—with the new and surprising beauty which fresh garments, whatever they are, give to every woman in the eyes of the man who loves her.
What shouts! What laughter! Stowell kept saying to himself:
"Why not? It will soon be over."
They slackened sail and waited for the sun to go down before shooting their nets. Presently the great ball of flame descended into the sea, the admiral of the fleet ran his flag to his masthead, and the Captain cried, "Shoot!"
Then the brown net, with its floats, was dropped over the stern (Fenella taking a hand and shouting with the men), the foresail was hauled down, and the mizzen set to keep the ship head to the wind. And then, all being snug for the night, came the fisherman's prayer:
"Dy hannie Patrick Noo shin as nyn maaty" (May St. Patrick bless us and our boat) with something about the living and the dead—the crew and the fish.
After that came the throwing of the salt, a more robustious and less religious ceremony, which threw Fenella into fits of laughter.
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"Goodness knows!"
"How delightful!"
The grey twilight came down from the northern heavens, and then night fell—a dark night without moon but with a world of stars. Stowell and Fenella were leaning over the side to watch the phosphorescent gleams which, like flashes of light under the surface, came from the fish that were darting away from the prow.
"Isn't it wonderful—the fish going on and on to the goal of their perpetual travels?" said Fenella.
"They always come back to the place they were spawned, though," said Stowell.
"Like humans, are they? You remember—'Back to the heart's place here I keep for thee.'"
Stowell felt as if a hand were at his throat again. "Bye and bye," he thought. Before they turned in for the night he would tell her everything.
Suddenly there was a crash at the stern—the anchor had been lifted up and then banged down on the deck.
"What's that?" cried Fenella.
"They're proving the nets to see if the fish are coming," said Stowell, and hurrying aft together they found the water milky white and full of irridescent rays.
A couple of warps of the net were hauled aboard, and twelve or fifteen herring fell on to the deck. Fenella picked them up, wriggling, cheeping and twisting in her hands and threw them into a basket—she was in a fever of excitement.
After that several of the boats that were fishing alongside called across to know the result of the proving, and the Captain answered them in Manx, with the crude symbolism of the sea.
"Let me do it next time," said Fenella.
"Do you think you can, miss?" asked the Captain.
"She can do anything," said Stowell, and when the next boat called, Fenella (with Stowell to prompt her) stood ready to reply.
"R'ou promal, bhoy?" cried the voice out of the darkness.
"What's he saying? Quick!"
"He's asking were you proving, boy. Say 'Va—I was.'"
Fenella put her open palms at each side of her mouth, under her sou'-wester, and cried, "Va!"
"Quoid oo er y piyr?"
"He asks what you found in your net. Say 'Pohnnar—a child.'"
"Oh my goodness! Pohnnar," cried Fenella.
"Cre'n eash dy pohnnar?"
"He asks what is the age of your child. Say 'Dussan ny quieg-yeig—twelve to fifteen.'"
"My goodness gracious! Dussan ny quieg-yeig," cried Fenella.
By this time everybody was in convulsions of laughter, and Stowell could scarcely resist the impulse to throw his arms about Fenella and kiss her. "Soon! Soon! I must tell her soon!" he thought.
The wind had dropped and a great stillness had fallen on the sea. The glow from the lights of the Dublin was in the western sky; the revolving light of the Chicken Rock (the most southerly point of Man) was in the east; and for two miles round lay the herring boats, with their watch-lights burning on the roofs of their net houses, and looking like stars which had fallen from the darkening sky on to the bosom of the sea.
Fenella began to sing, and before Stowell knew what he was doing he was singing with her:
She: Oh Molla-caraine, where got you your gold?
He: Lone, lone, you have left me here.
It was entrancing—the hour, the surroundings, the charm and sonority of the sea! "But this is madness," thought Stowell. It would only make it the harder to do—what he had to do.
Nevertheless he went on, and when they came to the end of another Manx ballad Kiree fo naightey (the sheep under the snow) he said:
"Would you like to know where that old song was written?"
"Where?"
"In Castle Rushen—by a poor wretch whose life had been sworn away by a vindictive woman."
"And what had he done to her? Betrayed her, and then deserted her for another woman, I suppose. That's the one thing a woman can never forgive—never should, perhaps."
"I must tell her soon," thought Stowell. But he could think of no way to begin—no natural way to lead up to what he had to say.
The night was now very dark and silent. The majesty and solemnity around were grand and moving. Fenella, who had been laughing all the evening, was serious enough at last.
"It's almost as if the sea, grown old, had gone to sleep with the going down of the sun, isn't it?" she said.
"The sea isn't always like this, though," said Stowell.
"No, it can be very cruel, can't it? Rolling on and on, with its incessant, monotonous roar through the ages! What heartless things it has done! Millions and millions of women have prayed and it has no heed to them."
"How can I do it? How can I do it?" Stowell was asking himself.
"Oh, what a thing it is to be a sailor's wife!" said Fenella. "Only think of her with her little brood, in her cottage at Peel, perhaps, when a sudden storm comes on! Giving the children their supper and washing them and undressing them, and hearing them say their prayers and hushing them to sleep, and then going downstairs to the kitchen, and listening to the roar of the sea on the castle rocks, and thinking of her man out here in the darkness, struggling between life and death."
Stowell knew, though he dare not look, that she was brushing her handkerchief over her eyes.
"Victor," she said, "don't you think women are rather brave creatures?"
"The bravest creatures in the world!" he answered.
"I knew you would say that," said Fenella, in a low voice. "And that's why I always think of you as their champion, fighting their battles for them when they are wronged and helpless."
Stowell felt as if he were choking. He could not go on with this hypocrisy any longer. He must tell her now. It would be like committing suicide, but what must be, must be.
"Fenella...."
But just then the loud voice of the Captain cried "Strike!" and at the next moment Fenella was flying aft, to tug at the net and shake out the herrings that came up with it.
What shouts! What screams! What peals of laughter!
It was midnight before the joy and bustle of the catch were over, and the net was shot again. The Governor was then smoking his last pipe in the Captain's cabin, and Stowell, with Fenella on his arm, was walking to and fro on the deck.
"Need I tell her at all?" he was thinking.
He felt as if he were being swept along by an irresistible flood. He could not doom himself to death. With Fenella by his side he could think of nobody and nothing but her. Sometimes, when they crossed the light from the skylight, they turned their faces towards each other and smiled.
After a while Stowell found himself bantering Fenella. Catching a flash of her ring (his mother's ring) on the hand that was on his arm, he pretended it was gone and asked if it had fallen off while she was pulling at the net.
"Gone! The ring you ga— .... I mean the Deemster gave me! No, here it is! What a shock! I should have died if I had lost it."
She was radiant; he was reckless; the little trick had uncovered their hearts to each other.
They heard a step on the other side of the deck.
"Fenella!"
It was the Governor going down the companion. "Time to turn in, girl! We are to breakfast at Port St. Mary at nine in the morning, you know."
"I'm coming, father."
"Good-night, Stowell!"
"Good-night, Sir!"
But he could not let Fenella go. It was a sin to go to bed at all on such a heavenly night. At last, at the top of the companion, he loosed her arm, with a slow asundering, and said,
"The Governor says we are to breakfast at Port St. Mary—do you think we shall if this calm continues?"
She laughed (her laugh seemed to come up from her heart) and said, "I'm not worrying about that."
"No?"
"When a woman has all she wants in the world in one place why should she wish to go to another?"
"And have you?"
"Good-night!" she said, holding out both hands.
He caught them, and the touch communicated fire. At the next moment he had lifted her hands to his lips.
She drew them down, and his hands with them, pressed them to her breast and then broke away, and was gone in an instant.
Stowell gasped. "She loves me! She loves me! She loves me!"
Nothing else mattered! Let the world rip!
II
Stowell did not go below that night. For two hours he tramped the deck, laughing to himself like a lunatic.
"She loves me! She loves me! She loves me!"
When the watch had to be changed at two o'clock he sent the man to his berth and took his place. And when the dawn broke and the lamps of the fishing fleet blinked out, and the boats showed grey, like ghosts, on the colourless waste around, and the monotonous chanting of the crews far and near told him the nets were being hauled in, he shouted down the fo'c'sle for the men. And when they came on deck he helped them to haul in their own net and to empty their catch (it was the Governor's order) into the first "Nickey" that came along.
The grey sky in the east had reddened to a flame by this time. Then up from the round rim of the sea rose the everlasting sun, and lo, it was day! God, what an enchanted world it was! All the glory and majesty of the sea seemed to be singing hymns to the same tune as that of his own heart:
"She loves me! She loves me! She loves me!"
A light wind sprang up, a cool blowing from the south, just enough to ripple the surface of the water. Already some of the fishing boats had swung about and were standing off for home. Stowell helped to haul the mainsail, and shouted with the men as they pulled at the ropes and the white canvas rose above them.
"She loves me! She loves me! She loves me!"
Within half an hour the wind had freshened to a summer gale and they were running before a roaring sea. The sails bellied out, the yacht listed over, the scuppers were half full of water, but Stowell would not go below. For a long hour more he held on and looked around at the fishing boats as they flew together in the brilliant sunshine between the two immensities of sky and sea.
"She loves me! She loves me! She loves me!"
Helloa! Here was his own little island with the sun riding over the mountain-tops! The plunging and rearing of the yacht gave the notion that the mountains were nodding to him. "Good morning, son." What nonsense came into a man's head when his heart was glad!
"She loves me! She loves me! She loves me!"
Ah, here were the cliffs of the Calf, with their hoary heads in the flying sky and their feet in the thunder of the sea! And here was the brown-belted lighthouse of the Chicken Rock, which Fenella and he had picked up last night! And here was the shoulder of Spanish Head, and here was the belly of the Chasms, ringing with the cry of ten thousand sea fowl!
"She loves me! She loves me! She loves me!"
Suddenly there came a shock. They were opening the bay of Port St. Mary, with the little fishing town lying asleep along its sheltered arm, when he saw across the Poolvaish (the pool of death) the grey walls of Castle Rushen, and the long reach of Langness. And then memory flowed back on him like a tidal wave.
Derby Haven! The old maids' house! The girl burning her candle in her bedroom to educate herself that she might become worthy to be his wife!
"Oh God! Oh God!"
If Fenella loved him he had stolen her love. He had no right to it, being married already, virtually married—bound by every tie that could hold an honourable man.
He felt like a traitor—a traitor to Fenella now. He recalled what he had said last night. One step more and——
Thank God, he had gone no farther! If he had allowed Fenella to engage herself to him, and then the facts about Bessie Collister had become known, as they might have done through Dan Baldromma——
He must go. He must go immediately. His miserable mistake must not bring disgrace on Fenella also.
The yacht was sliding into the slack water of the bay, and the row-boats of the fish-buyers, each flying its little flag, were coming out to meet the fishing boats, when Stowell went down to the saloon—still dark with its blue silk curtains over skylight and portholes.
He took off his fisherman's clothes, put on his own, and sat down at the table to scribble a note to the Governor:
"Excuse me! I must go up to Douglas by the first train. Have just remembered an important engagement.
Hope to call at Government Office to-morrow."
As he was leaving the saloon he looked back towards the cabin in which Fenella lay asleep. His eyes were wet, his heart throbbed painfully, he felt as if he were being banished from her presence as by a curse. Renunciation—life-long renunciation—that was all that was left to him now.
The fleet were in harbour when he went on deck, a hundred boats huddled together. And when he stepped ashore the fish salesmen were selling the night's catch by auction, and the bronze-faced and heavy-bearded fishermen, in their big boots, were counting their herrings in mixed English and Manx:
"Nane, jeer, three, kiare, quieg .... warp, tally!"
When Stowell awoke next morning at Ballamoar a flock of sheep, liberated from a barn, were bleating before a barking dog. He had passed a restless night. All his soul revolted against the renunciation he had imposed upon himself. It was like life-long imprisonment. Yet what was he to do? He must decide and decide quickly.
Suddenly he thought of the Governor. The strong sense and practical wisdom of the Governor might help him to a decision. But Fenella's father! How could he tell his story to Fenella's father?
At last an idea came to him whereby he could obtain the Governor's counsel without betraying his secret. He was at the crisis. On what he did now the future of his life depended. And not his own life, only, but Fenella's also, perhaps, and .... Bessie Collister's.
At three o'clock he was at the Government offices in Douglas. Police inspectors were at the door and moving about in the corridors. One of them took him up to the Governor's room—a large chamber overlooking the street and noisy from the tram-cars that ran under the windows. The Governor's iron-grey head was bent over a desk-table.
"Sit down—I shall not be long."
Stowell felt his heart sink in advance. Never would he be able to say what he had come to say.
"Well, you gave us the slip nicely, didn't you?" said the Governor, raising his head from his papers.
"I'm sorry, Sir," said Stowell (he felt his lip trembling). "It was an important matter, and I've come to town to-day to ask your advice on it."
"Something you've been consulted about?"
"Well .... yes."
"I'm no authority on law, you know."
"It's not so much a matter of law, Sir, as of morality—what an honourable man ought to do under difficult circumstances."
The Governor looked up sharply. Stowell struggled on.
"A client .... I should say a friend .... engaged himself to a young woman awhile ago, and now, owing to circumstances which have arisen since, he finds it difficult to decide whether it is his duty to marry her."
"Manxman?"
"Yes."
"What class?"
Stowell felt his voice as well as his lips trembling. "Oh, good enough class, I think."
The Governor picked up his pipe from the table, charged it, lighted it, turned his chair towards the fireplace, threw his leg over the rail-fender and said:
"Fire away."
Then trembling and ashamed, but making a strong call on his resolution, Stowell told his own story—as if it had been that of another man.
When he had come to an end there was a long silence. The Governor pulled hard at his pipe and there was no other sound in the room except the rattle of the tram-cars in the street.
Stowell felt hot, his lips felt dry, and pushing back his black hair, he found sweat on his forehead.
"It was a shocking blunder, of course," he said. "My man doesn't defend himself. Still he thinks the circumstances...."
"You mean it wasn't deliberate?"
"Good Lord, no!"
"In fact a kind of accident?"
"One might say so."
"Any harm done?"
"Harm?" Stowell turned white and began to stammer. "I .... no, that is to say .... no, I've never heard...."
"And yet he promised to marry the girl?"
"He felt responsible for her. He couldn't be a scoundrel."
"Did he care for her—love her?"
"I can't say that, Sir. He might have thought he did."
"And now he loves another woman?"
"With all his heart and soul, Sir."
"But" (the Governor was puffing placidly) "he has promised to marry the little farm girl, and she's away somewhere educating herself to become his wife?"
"That's it, Sir," said Stowell (his head was down), "and now he is asking himself what it is his duty to do. I have told him it is his duty as a man of honour to carry out his promise—to marry the girl, whatever the consequences to himself. Am I right, Sir?"
There was another moment of silence, and then the Governor, taking his pipe out of his mouth, and bringing his open palm down on the table, said:
"No!"
"No?"
"It would be marrying the wrong woman, wouldn't it?"
"Well .... yes, one might say that, Sir."
"Then it would be a crime."
"A crime?"
"A three-fold crime."
The Governor rose, crossed the floor, then drew up in front of Stowell and spoke with sudden energy.
"First, against the girl herself. She's an attractive young person, I suppose, eh?"
Stowell nodded.
"But uneducated, illiterate, out of another world, as they say?"
Stowell nodded again.
"Then does your man suppose that by sending her to school for a few months he will bridge the gulf between them? Is that how he expects to make her happy? Ten to one the girl will be a miserable outsider in her husband's house to the last day of her life. But that's not the worst, by a long way."
"No?"
"If he marries her it will out of a sense of duty will it not?"
"Ye-es."
"Well, what woman on God's earth wants to be married out of a sense of duty? And if he loves another woman do you think his wife will not find it out some day? Of course she will! And when she does what do you think will happen? I'll tell you what will happen. If she's one of the sensitive kind she'll feel herself crushed, superfluous, and pine away and die of grief and shame, or perhaps take a dose of something .... we've heard of such happenings, haven't we? And if she's a woman of the other sort she'll go farther."
"You mean...."
"Suspicion, jealousy, envy! She may not care a brass farthing about her husband, but her pride as a wife will be wounded. She won't give him a day's peace, or herself either. He'll never be an hour out of her sight but she'll think he's with the other woman. And then—what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander! If he has another woman as likely as not she'll have another man—we've heard of that, too, haven't we?"
Stowell dropped his head. His heart was beating high, and he was afraid his face was betraying it. The Governor touched him on the shoulder, and continued,
"In the next place, it would be a crime against the man himself. He's a young fellow of some prospects, I suppose?"
"I .... I think so."
"And the girl has some family, hasn't she?"
"Yes."
"They may be good and worthy folk of whom he would have no reason to be ashamed. But isn't it just as likely that they are people of quite another kidney? Sisters and brothers and cousins to the tenth degree? Some vulgar and rapacious old father, perhaps, who hasn't taken too much trouble to keep the girl out of temptation while she has been at home, but freezes on to her fast enough after she has made a good marriage. Possible, isn't it?"
"Quite possible, sir."
"Well, what are your man's own friends going to do with him with a menagerie like that at his heels? No, he has fettered himself for life to failure as well as misery, and while his wife is railing at him about the other woman he is reproaching her with standing in his light. So the end of his noble endeavour is that he has set up a little private hell for himself in the house he calls his home."
Stowell was wincing at every word, but all the same he knew that his eyes were shining. The Governor looked sharply up at him for a moment, lit his pipe afresh and said,
"Then there's the other woman. I suppose her case is worthy of some consideration?"
"Indeed, yes."
"If she cares for the man...."
"I can't say that, Sir."
"Well, if she does, she too will suffer, will she not? And what has she done to deserve suffering? Nothing at all! She's the innocent scapegoat, isn't she?"
"That's true."
"Fine woman, I suppose?"
"The finest woman in the world, Sir."
"Just so! But your man would doom her to renunciation—a solitary life of sorrow and regret. And so the only result of his praiseworthy principles, his sense of duty, as you say, and all the rest of it, is that he will have ruined three lives—the life of the woman he marries and does not love, the life of the woman he loves and does not marry, and his own life also."
"Then you think, Sir .... you think he should stop even yet?"
"Even at the church door, at the altar-steps—if there's no harm done, and he is sure she is the wrong woman."
Stowell felt as if the vapours which had clouded his brain so long had been swept away as by a mountain breeze, but he thought it necessary to keep up the disguise.
"I feel you must be right, sir," rising to go. "At all events I cannot argue against you. But I think you'll agree that .... that if my man can wipe out this bad passage in his life without injury to anybody and without scandal .... I think you will agree that his first duty is to tell the woman he loves...."
"Eh? What the deuce .... Good heavens, no!"
"But surely he couldn't ask a pure-minded girl...."
"To take the other woman's leavings? Certainly he couldn't if she knew anything about it. But why should she? Why should a pure-minded girl, as you say, be told about something that happened before she came on to the scene?"
Stowell's scruples were overcome. He had argued against himself, but he knew well that he had wished to be beaten. He was going off when the Governor, following him to the door, laid a hand on his shoulder and said,
"When a man has done wrong the thing he has got to do next is to say nothing about it. That's what your man has got to do now. It's the woman secret, isn't it? Very well, he must never reveal it to anybody—never, under any circumstances—never in this world!"
II
Next day, at Ballamoar, after many fruitless efforts to begin, Stowell was writing to Bessie Collister.
"DEAR BESSIE,—I am sorry to send you this letter and it is very painful for me to write it. But I cannot allow you to look forward any longer to something which can never happen.
"The truth is—I must tell you the truth, Bessie—since you went to Derby Haven I have found that I do not love you as I ought, to become your husband. That being so, I cannot do you the great wrong of marrying you. It would not be either for your good or for mine. And since I cannot marry you I feel that we must part. I am miserable when I say this, but I see that in justice to you, as well as to myself, nothing else can be...."
He could go no further. A wave of tenderness towards Bessie came over him. He had visions of the girl receiving and reading his letter. It would be at night in her little bedroom, perhaps—the room in which she burnt her candle to learn her lessons.
No, it would be too cruel, too cowardly. He would not write—he would go to Derby Haven and break the news to the girl himself.
But that evoked other and more fearful visions. They would be walking along the sandy path at Langness with the stark white lighthouse at the end of it. "Bessie," he would be saying, "We must part; it will be better for both of us. It has all been my fault. You have nothing to reproach yourself with. But you must try to forget me, and if there is anything else I can do...." And then the reproaches, the recriminations, the tears, the supplications, the appeals: "Don't throw me over! You promised to stand up for me, you know. I will be good."
It would be terrible. It would make his heart bleed. Nevertheless he must bear it. It was a part of his punishment.
He had torn up his letter and was putting his hand on the bell to order the dog-cart to be brought round to take him to the railway station, when a servant came into the room and said,
"Mr. Alick Gell to see you, sir."
Gell came in with a gloomy and half-shamefaced look. His tall figure was bent, his fair hair was disordered, and his voice trembled as he said,
"Can't we take a walk in the wood, old fellow? I have something to say."
"I don't know how to tell you," he began. They were crossing the lawn towards the plantation. "Its about Bessie."
"Bessie?"
"I .... I'm madly in love with her."
Stowell stopped and looked without speaking into Gell's twitching face.
"I knew you wouldn't be able to believe it, but don't look at me like that."
"Tell me," said Stowell.
And then, stammering and trembling, Gell told his story. He didn't know how it began. Perhaps it was pity. He had been sorry for the girl, over there in that lonely place, so he went down at first just to cheer her up. Then he had found himself going frequently, buying her presents and taking her out for walks. When he had realised how things were he had tried to pull up, but it was too late. He had struggled to be loyal—to strengthen himself by talking of Stowell—praising him to the girl, excusing him for not coming to see her—but it was useless. His pity had developed into love, and before he had known what he was doing Bessie was in his arms. At the next instant he had felt like a traitor. He was frantically happy and yet he wanted to kill himself.
"It was terrible," he said. "I couldn't sleep at night for thinking of it. Bessie wanted you to be told. In fact she wrote you a letter, saying we couldn't help loving each other, and asking you to release her. But I couldn't let her go that far. 'Then go to Ballamoar and tell him yourself,' she said. And at last I've come. And now .... now you know."
Stowell listened in silence. His first feeling was one of wounded pride. He had really been a great fool about the girl! What fathomless depths of conceit had led him to think she would break her heart if he gave her up? And then the long struggle between his love and his duty—what a mountebank Fate seemed to have made of him! But his next feeling was one of relief—boundless, inexpressible relief. The iron chain he had been dragging after him had been broken. He was free!
Gell, who was breathing hard, was watching Stowell from under his cap, which was pulled down over his forehead. They were walking in a path that was thick with fallen leaves, and there was no sound for some moments but that of the rustling under their feet.
"Why don't you speak, old fellow? I've behaved like a cad, I know. But for God's sake, don't torture me. Strike me in the face with your fist. I would rather that—upon my soul, I would."
"Alick," said Stowell, putting his arm through Gell's. "I'm going to tell you something."
"What?"
"Do you know what I was on the point of doing when you came? Going down to Derby Haven to ask Bessie to let me off."
"Is that true? You're not saying it merely to .... But why?"
"Because what's happened to her has happened to me also—I love somebody else."
"No? Really? .... But who .... who is the other girl? .... Is it .... It's Fenella, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"How splendid! I'm glad! And of course I congratulate you .... No? .... You've not asked her yet? But that will be all right—of course it will!"
Taking off his cap to fan himself with, Gell broke into fits of half hysterical laughter. Then he said:
"You don't mind my saying something now that it's all over? No? Well, to tell you the truth I could never believe you really cared for Bessie. I thought you were only marrying her as a sort of duty, having got her into trouble with Dan Baldromma. And it was so—partly so—wasn't it? That didn't excuse me, though, did it? Lord, what a relief! I feel as if you had lifted ten tons off my head."
A dark memory came to Stowell. "Has she told him?"
"Bessie will be relieved, too, and just as glad as I am. Do you know, there's a heart of gold in that girl. She's never had a dog's chance yet. Not much education, I admit, but such spirit, such character! Such a woman too—you said so yourself, remember."
A still darker memory of something the Governor had said came to Stowell. "Didn't you say Bessie had written to me?" he asked.
"Yes, she did, yesterday; but I destroyed her letter."
"Do you know, I wrote to Bessie to-day, and I destroyed my letter also."
"No? What fun if your letters had crossed in the post," said Gell, and tossing his cap into the air, he broke into still louder peals of laughter.
Again Stowell felt immense relief. It was impossible that Bessie could have told him. And if she hadn't, why should he? Why injure the girl in Gell's eyes? Why tarnish his faith in her? It was the woman's secret, therefore he must never reveal it—never in this world.
They were walking on. Gell with a high step was kicking up the withered leaves.
"What about your people?" asked Stowell.
"Ah, that's what I've got to find out. I'm going home now to tell them. My mother is always advising me to marry and settle down, but of course she'll jib at Bessie, and the sisters will follow suit. As for my father, he has only one son, as he says, and I must have a better allowance. He cut it down after that affair in the Courts, you know."
They were at the gate to the road, and pulling it open, Gell said:
"Phew! How different I feel from what I did when I was coming in here half an hour ago! I thought you would kick me out the minute I had told you. But now we're going to be better friends than ever, aren't we?"
"Good-bye and good luck, old fellow," said Stowell.
"Good-bye, and God bless you, old chap," said Gell.
Stowell stood at the gate and watched him going off with long strides, his shoulders working vigorously.
"Never again! We can never be the same friends again," thought Stowell, as he turned back to the house.
He was feeling like a man who in a moment of passion has secretly wronged his life-long friend and can never look straight into his eyes again.
But the sense of a barrier between Gell and himself was soon wiped out by the memory of Fenella. He was free to love her at last! No more hypocrisy! No more self-denial! No more struggles between passion and duty! The past was dead. Life from that day forward was beginning again for all of them.
"Was that Alick Gell in the wood with you?" asked Janet, who had come to the door to call Stowell in to tea.
"Yes."
"Goodness me! He must be a happy boy. He was laughing enough, anyway."
III
Stowell went to bed early that night, slept soundly and was up with the coming of light in the morning.
The farm lads were not yet astir, but going round to the stable he saddled a horse for himself (a young chestnut mare that had been born on one of his own birthdays) and set off for a ride to relieve the intoxication of his spirits.
The air was keen, but both he and his horse sniffed it with delight. As they passed out of Ballamoar the sun rose and played among the red and yellow leaves of the plantation, for the summer was going out in a blaze of glory. They crossed the Curragh, dipped into the glen, and climbed the corkscrew path to the mountain.
Stowell thought he had never felt so well. And the little mare, catching the contagion of his high spirits, snorted and swung her head at every stride and dug her feet into the ringing ground.
"Helloa, Molly, here we are at the top!"
Looking hack he saw the flat plain below, dotted over with farms, each with its little farmhouse surrounded by its clump of sheltering trees. God, how good to think that every one of them was a home of love! Love! That was the great uniter, the great comforter, the great liberator, the great redeemer!
And to think that all this had been going on since the beginning of the world! That generation after generation some boy had come up this lovely glen to court his girl! Lord, what a glorious place the world was, after all!
His eyes were beaming like the sunshine, and to make his joy complete he galloped over the mountain-tops until he came to a point at which he could look down on Douglas and catch a glimpse of Fenella's home in the midst of its trees.
"Peace in her chamber, wheresoe'er it be,
A holy place...."
Then back to Ballamoar at a brisk canter, with the air musical with the calls of cattle, the bleating of sheep and the songs of birds. And then breakfast for a hungry man—cowrie and eggs and fresh butter and honey and junket, which the Manx called pinjean.
At three o'clock in the afternoon he was on his way to Government House, and by that time the intoxication of his high spirits had suffered a check.
What had Fenella thought of his flight from the yacht? Had she believed his excuse for it? What interpretation had she put upon his intention of calling at Government Offices the following day? And the Governor—had he seen through the thin disguise of that story?
But the cruellest question of all, and the hardest to answer, was whether after all, even now that he was free, he had any right to ask Fenella to become his wife? He, a sin-soiled man, and she a stainless woman!
He felt as if he ought to purge his soul by telling Fenella everything. Yet how could he do that without inflicting an incurable wound on her faith in him? And then what had the Governor said? "Never under any circumstances."
As he walked up the carriage drive to Government House he saw the Governor's tall figure, and the Attorney-General's short one, through the windows of the smoking-room. The Governor came to the door to meet him.
"The very man we were talking about. Come in! Sit down. We have something to propose to you."
The Governor was going up to London on urgent business at the Home Office and the Attorney had to go with him. In these circumstances it had been necessary to arrange that the Court of General Gaol Delivery (interrupted by the Deemster's death, but now summoned to resume) should sit without the Governor, and the Attorney had been suggesting that Stowell should represent him in an important case.
"What is it, Sir?" asked Stowell.
"Murder again, my boy; but of a different kind this time."
A Peel fisherman had killed his wife with shocking brutality, yet everybody seemed to sympathise with him, and there was a danger that a Manx jury might let him off.
"Splendid opportunity to uphold law and order! You'll take the case?"
"With pleasure!"
"Good! The Attorney will send you the papers. And now, I suppose, you would like to see Fenella?"
"May I?"
"Why not? You'll find her in the drawing-room."
On his way to the drawing-room Stowell met Miss Green coming out of it. She smiled at him, and said, in a half-whisper,
"I think you are expected."
When he opened the door he saw Fenella sitting with her back to him at a little desk on one side of the bay window, with a glint of its light on her bronze-brown hair.
"Who is it?" she said as he entered. But at the next moment she seemed to know, and, rising, she turned round to him and smiled.
He thought she had never looked so beautiful. He wanted to crush her in his arms, and at the same time to fall at her feet and kiss the hem of her dress.
There was a moment of passionate silence. He stepped towards her but stopped when two or three paces away. A riot of conflicting emotions were going on within him. He felt strong, he felt weak, he felt brave, he felt cowardly, he felt proud, he felt ashamed.
Still nothing was said by either of them. Her eyes were glistening, she was breathing quickly and her bosom was heaving. He saw her moving towards him. Her hand was trailing along the desk. He felt as if she were drawing him to her, and by a nervous, but irresistible impulse he held out his arms.
"Fenella," he said, hardly audibly.
At the next moment, as in a flash of light, she sprang upon his breast, and at the next her arms were about his neck, his own were around her waist, her mouth was to his mouth, and the world had melted away.
Ten minutes later, with faces aflame, they went, hand in hand, into the smoking-room. The Governor wheeled about on his revolving chair to look at them.
"Well," he said, "it's easy to see what you two have come about. But not for six months! I won't agree to a day less, remember."
Before Alick Gell reached his father's house another had been there on the same errand.
Earlier in the afternoon Dan Baldromma, while running his hands through the ground flour in the mill, with the wheel throbbing and the stones groaning about him, had been struck by a new idea.
"Liza," he said, returning to the dwelling house and standing with his back to the fire and his big hands behind him, "that young wastrel ought to be freckened into marrying the girl, and I'm thinking I know the way to do it, too."
"It's like thou do, Dan," said Mrs. Collister.
Dan's device was of the simplest. It was that of sending the mother of Bessie Collister to the mother of Alick Gell to threaten and intimidate her.
"But sakes alive, man, that's an ugly job, isn't it?"
"It's got to be done, woman, or there'll be worse to do next, I tell thee. Thou don't want to see thy daughter where her mother was before her."
"Well, well, if I must, I must," said Mrs. Collister. "But, aw dear, aw dear! If thou hadn't thrown the girl into the way of temptation by shutting the door on her...."
"Hould thy whist, woman, and do as I tell thee, and that will be the best night's work I ever done for her."
Half an hour later, having swept the earthen floor, hung the kettle on its sooty chain, and laid the table for Dan's tea, Mrs. Collister toiled upstairs to dress for her journey, and came down in the poke bonnet and satin mantle which she wore to chapel on Sunday.
Meantime Dan had harnessed the old mare to the stiff cart and brought it round to the door. Having helped his wife over the wheel and put the rope reins in her hands, he gave her his parting instructions.
"See thou stand up for thy rights, now! This is thy chance and thou's got to make the best of it!"
"Aw well, we'll see," said the old woman, and then the stiff cart rattled over the cobbled "street" on its way to the Speaker's.
In her comfortable sitting-room, thickly carpeted and plentifully cushioned, Mrs. Gell was awakened from her afternoon nap by the scream of the peacocks.
"It's Mistress Daniel Collister of Baldromma to see you, ma'am," said the maid.
At the next moment, Mrs. Collister, with a timid air, hobbled into the room on her stick, and the two mothers came face to face.
"You wish to speak to me," said Mrs. Gell.
"If you plaze, ma'am," said Mrs. Collister, huskily.
Isabella Gell, a sour-faced young woman, came into the room and stood behind her mother's chair. Mrs. Collister took the seat that was assigned to her, and fumbled the ribbons of her bonnet to loosen them.
"It's about my daughter, ma'am."
"Well?"
"My daughter and your son, ma'am."
"Eh?"
"Cæsar Qualtrough of the Kays has seen them together. They're living down Castletown way, they're saying."
"Living .... my son and your daughter?"
"So they're saying, ma'am."
"I don't believe it! I don't believe a word of it!"
"I wish in my heart I could say the same, ma'am. But it's truth enough, I'm fearing."
"And if it is—I don't say it is, but if it is—why have you come to me?"
Then trembling all over, Mrs. Collister continued her story. Her poor girl was in trouble. When a girl was in trouble the world could be cruel hard on her. Nobody would think the cruel hard it could be. If a girl did wrong it was because somebody she was fond of had promised to marry her. What else would she do it for? When a young man had behaved like that to a poor girl he ought to keep his word to her. And if he had a mother, and she was a good Christian woman....
Mrs. Gell, who was beating her foot on the carpet, broke in impatiently.
"In short, you think my son ought to marry your daughter?"
"It's nothing but right, ma'am."
"And you've come here to ask me to tell him to do so?"
"If you plaze, ma'am."
"Well, I never!" said Isabella.
"She's a mother herself, I was thinking, and if one of her own girls was in the same position...."
"The idea!" said Isabella.
"Mrs. Collister," said Mrs. Gell, with a proud lift of her head, "I was sorry when I heard of the trouble your daughter had brought on you, but what you are doing now is a piece of great assurance."
"But Bessie is a good girl, ma'am. And if she married your son you would never have raison to be ashamed of her."
"Good indeed! If a girl isn't ashamed to be living with a young man the less said about her goodness the better."
"Aw well, ma'am," said Mrs. Collister (her faltering tongue had become firmer and her timid eyes had begun to flash), "if she's living with the young man, he's living with her, and the shame is the same for both, I'm thinking."
Mrs. Gell drew herself up in her chair.
"I'm astonished at you, Mrs. Collister! A woman yourself, and not seeing the difference."
"Aw yes, difference enough, ma'am! And when a young man doesn't keep his word it's the woman that's knowing it best by the trouble that's coming on her."
Mrs. Gell, whose anger was rising, lifted her chin again and said, "If your daughter is in trouble, Mrs. Collister, how are we to know that she had not brought it on her own head, just to get Alick to marry her?"
"The creature!" said Isabella.
"And how are we to know that you and your husband have not encouraged the girl in her wickedness just to get our son for your son-in-law?"
"Aw well, ma'am," said Mrs. Collister (she was fumbling at the strings of her bonnet to tighten them), "if you are thinking as bad of me as that...."
"You talk of the danger to your daughter if my son doesn't marry her," said Mrs. Gell. "But what of the danger to my son if he does? His life will be ruined. He will never be able to raise his head in the island again. His father will disown him. Marry your daughter indeed! Not only will I not ask him to marry her, but if I see the slightest danger of his doing anything so foolish I will do everything I can to prevent it."
"Aw well, we'll say no more, ma'am," said Mrs. Collister, and she shuffled to her feet.
But Mrs. Gell was up before her.
"Alexander Gell, son of the Speaker and grandson of Archdeacon Mylechreest, married to the step-daughter of Dan Baldromma and the nameless offspring of Liza Collister....
"Ma'am!"
Mrs. Collister had hobbled to the door, and was going out, humbled and beaten, when Mrs. Gell's last words cut her to the quick. For more than twenty years she had taken the punishment of her own sin and bowed her head to the lash of it, but at this insult to her child the weak and timid creature turned about, as brave as a lion and as fierce as a fury.
"I'm not your quality, I know that, ma'am," she said, breathing quickly, "but a day is coming, and maybe it's near, when we'll be standing together where we'll both be equal. Just two old mothers, and nothing else between us. If you've loved your son, I've loved my daughter, whatever she is, ma'am. And when the One who reads all hearts is after asking me what I did for my child in the day of her trouble, I'll be telling Him I came here to beg you on my knees to save her from a life of sin and shame, and you wouldn't, because your worldly pride prevented. And then it's Himself, ma'am, will be judging between us!"
II
There had been a sitting of the Keys that day, and when the Speaker returned home he found his wife on the sofa with a damp handkerchief over her forehead and a bottle of smelling-salts in her hand. She told him what had happened.
"Well, well," he said, "so that's what it means. But there's no knowing what hedge the hare will jump from."
His figure was less burly than before, his head was more bald and his full beard was whiter, but his eyes flashed with the same ungovernable fire.
"That girl must be a thoroughly bad one," said Mrs. Gell. "It's not the first time she has got our Alick into trouble, remember. We must save our son from the designing young huzzy."
"Tut! It's not the girl I'm troubling about."
"Who else, then?"
"The man! I might have expected as much, though!"
Coming home in the train he had had some talk with Kerruish, his advocate and agent. Dan Baldromma, who was back with his rent, was refusing to pay, and saying "Let the Spaker fetch me to Coort, and I'll tell him the raison."
"Then can't you settle with the man, Archie?"
"Settle with Dan? I'll settle with Alick first, Bella, and if he has given that scoundrel the whip hand of me I'll break every bone in his body."
"But it may not be true. It cannot be true. Unless Alick tells me so himself I'll never believe a word of it."
They were at tea in the dining-room, country fashion, the Speaker at the head of the table with a plate of fish before him, and his wife and daughters at either side, when Alick entered.
"Helloa!" he cried, with a forced gaiety. But only his mother responded to his greeting and made room for him by her side. She saw that he was paler and thinner, and that his hand trembled when he took his cup.
The Speaker, who had turned his rough shoulder to his son, tried to restrain himself from breaking out on him until the meal would be over and he could take him into his own room, but before long his impatience overcame him.
"What's this we're hearing about you—that you are carrying on with a girl?"
"Do you mean Bessie Collister, Sir?" said Alick.
"Certainly I mean Bessie Collister. And I thought you gave me your word that you would see no more of her."
"But that was the promise of a boy, Sir. Did you expect it to bind the man also?"
"The man? The man!" said the Speaker, mimicking his son's voice in a mincing treble. "Do you call yourself a man, bringing disgrace on your name and family."
"What disgrace, Sir?"
"What disgrace? All the island seems to have heard of it. Is it necessary to tell you? Living secret, so they say, with a woman who isn't fit company for your mother and sisters."
"If anybody told you that, Sir," said Alick (his lower lip was trembling), "he told you a lie—a damned lie, Sir!"
"There!" cried Mrs. Gell, turning to her husband. "What did I say? It isn't true, you see."
"Of course it isn't true, mother; and the best proof that I'm not behaving dishonourably to Bessie Collister is that I intend to marry her."
It was a sickening moment for Mrs. Gell, and the Speaker, for an instant, was dumbfounded.
"Eh? What? You intend to marry...."
"Yes, Sir; and that's why I'm here to-day—to bring you the news, and to ask you to restore the allowance you cut down in the spring, you know."
"That .... that .... that bast—...."
"Archie!" cried Mrs. Gell, indicating their daughters.
"Bessie is a good girl, father," said Alick. "What happened before she was born wasn't her fault, Sir."
"So you've come to bring us the news and to ask me to double your allowance?
"If you please, Sir. You couldn't wish your son and his wife...."
"His wife! There you are, Bella! That's what I've been working day and night thirty years for—to see my son throw half my earnings—all that I can't will away from him—into the hands of a man like Dan Baldromma!"
"But Alick will be reasonable," said Mrs. Gell. "He'll give the girl up."
"He'll have to do that, and quick too, or I'll cut off his allowance altogether."
"Do you mean it, Sir?" said Alick—he was pushing his chair back.
"Do I mean it? Certainly I mean it. You'll give the girl up or never another penny of mine shall you see as long as I live!"
"All right," said Alick, rising from the table, "I'll earn my own living."
The Speaker broke into a peal of scornful laughter. "You earn your living! That's rich!"
"Give her up?" cried Alick. "I'll break stones on the highway or porter on the pier before I'll give up her little finger!"
"You fool! You confounded fool! But no fear! She'll give you up when she finds you've lost your income."
"Will she? I'll trust her for that, Sir."
"Then get away back to her—you'll not be the first by a long way."
Alick, who had been trying to laugh, stopped his laughter suddenly, and said, "What do you mean by that, Sir?"
"Mean? Do you want me to tell you what I mean?"
"Archie," cried Mrs. Gell, and again she indicated their daughters.
"Get out of this, will you?" cried the Speaker to the girls, who had been sitting with their noses in their teacups.
The girls fled from the room, but stood outside to listen.
"Father," said Alick, "you must tell me what you mean."
"Mean! Mean! Don't stand there cross-examining your own father. You know what I mean! If half they say about the young b— .... is true she's fit enough for it, anyway."
"If any other man had said that," said Alick, quivering, "I should have knocked him down, Sir."
"What's that? You threaten me?" cried the Speaker. His voice was like the scream of a sea-gull, and making a step towards Alick he lifted his clenched fist to him.
Mrs. Gell intervened, and Alick retreated a pace or two.
"Take care, Sir," he said. "You can't treat me like that now. I'm not a child any longer."
"Then get away to your woman .... and to hell, if you want to."
"There was no need to tell me twice, Sir. I'm going. And as God is my witness, I'll never set foot in this house again."
At the next moment the peacocks were screaming outside, and the Speaker, who had thrown up the window, was shouting through it in a broken roar,
"Alick! Alick Gell! Come back, you damned scoundrel! Alick! Alexander...."
They had to carry him upstairs and send for Dr. Clucas. It had been another of his paralysing brain-storms. It was not to be expected that he could bear many more of them.
Two days later, Gell was stepping into the train for Castletown on his way to Derby Haven.
"Give me up because my income is gone? Not Bessie! Not Bessie Collister!"
But Bessie had gone through deep waters since he had seen her last.
From the first Victor Stowell had disappointed her. To live in the dark—hidden away, unrecognised, suppressed—it had not been according to her expectations. Her pride, too, had been wounded by being sent back to school. It was true that without being asked, Mr. Stowell had promised to marry her at some future time, but perhaps that was only because he was the son of the Deemster and therefore afraid of her step-father and of the cry there would be all over the island if anything became known.
If it had only been Alick! Alick would not have been ashamed of her. He would have taken her just as she was and never seen any shortcomings.
After the first days at Derby Haven she had found herself looking forward to Alick's visits. When she knew he was coming everything brightened up in her eyes and even her tiresome lessons became delightful. Before long she felt her heart leap up whenever the Misses Brown called, "Bessie, a gentleman to see you!"
It is easy to kindle a fire on a warm hearth. Alick had been Bessie's first sweetheart, perhaps her only one. Suddenly a wonderful thing happened to her. She found herself in love. She had thought she had always been in love with somebody, but now she realized that she had never been in love before. She was in love with Alick Gell. And she wished to become his wife.
That altered everything. She began to see how ignorant she was compared with Alick and how much she was beneath him. She remembered his three tall sisters who held their heads so high at anniversaries and bazaars, and thought what a shocking thing it would be if they were able to look down on her. How she worked to be worthy of him!
She had no qualms about Stowell. Her only anxiety was about Alick. She was certain that he loved her, yet what a fight she had for him! He was always talking about Stowell, and praising him up to her. When he excused his friend for not coming to see her she was quite sure it was all nonsense. And when he gave her presents and said they were from Stowell she knew where they came from.
One day he brought a wrist-watch with the usual message, and after he had put it on (how his hands were trembling!) she tried to thank him, but didn't know how to do so.
At last an idea occurred to her. They were walking on the Langness, just by the ruin of a windmill, whose walls and roof had been carried away by a gale.
"Alick," she said, "I wonder if my new watch is right by the clock at Castle Rushen?"
Alick put his hands to his eyes like blinkers (for the sun was setting) and looked across the bay. While he did so, Bessie slipped off on tiptoe and hid behind the walls of the windmill. As soon as she was missed there was a laugh and a shout and then a chase. Bessie dodged and Alick doubled, Bessie dodged again, but at length she slipped into a hole, and at the next moment Alick caught her up and kissed her.
"Now, what have you done?" she said, and her face was suffused with blushes.
After that there could be no disguise between them. Bessie felt no shame, and it never occurred to her that she had been guilty of treason. But Gell talked about disloyalty and said he would never be at ease until she had made a clean breast of it to Stowell.
"Then go and tell him we couldn't help loving each other," she said.
When he was gone she was very happy. Mr. Stowell would give her up. Of course he would. What had happened between them was dead and buried. Whatever else he was Victor Stowell was a gentleman. He would say nothing to Alick.
Then came a shock. On the following morning she felt unwell. She had often felt unwell since she came to Derby Haven, and the Misses Brown, simple old maids, seeing no cause except the change in the girl's way of life, wanted to send for a doctor. But doctors were associated in Bessie's mind with death. If you saw a doctor going into a farmhouse one day you saw a coffin going in the next.
Chemists were not open to the same objection. Often on market days, after she had sold out her basket of butter and eggs, she had called at the chemist's at Ramsey for medicine for her mother. So, saying nothing to her housemates, she slipped round to the chemist's at Castletown and asked for a bottle of mixture.
The chemist, an elderly man with a fatherly face, smiled at her, and said:
"But what is it for, miss?"
Bessie described her symptoms, and then the smiling face was grave.
"Are you a married woman, ma'am?" asked the chemist.
Bessie caught her breath, stared at the man for a moment with eyes full of fear, and then turned and fled out of the shop.
All that day she felt dizzy and deaf. The earth seemed to be slipping from under her. Memories of what she had heard from older women came springing to the surface of her mind, and she asked herself why she had not thought of this before. For a long time she struggled to persuade herself that the chemist was wrong, but conviction forced itself upon her at last.
Then she asked herself what she was to do, and remembering what she had learned as a child at home of her mother's miserable life before her marriage, she found only one answer to that question. She must ask Mr. Stowell to marry her. The thought of parting from Alick was heart-breaking. But the most terrible thing was that she found herself hoping that Stowell would refuse to release her.
It had been a wretched day, dark and cheerless, with driving mist and drizzling rain. Towards nightfall the old maids lighted a fire for her in the sitting-room, which was full of quaint nicknacks and old glass and china. The tide, which was at the bottom of the ebb, was sobbing against the unseen breakwater, and the gulls on the cobbles of the shore were calling continually.
Bessie was crouching over the fire with her chin in her hand when she heard the sneck of the garden gate, a quick step on the gravel, a light knock at the front door, a familiar voice in the lobby, and then old Miss Ethel saying behind her:
"A gentleman to see you, Bessie."
Her heart did not leap up as before, and she did not rise with her former alacrity, but Alick Gell came into the room like a rush of wind.
"What's this—unwell?" he cried.
"It's nothing! I shall be better in the morning," she said.
"Of course you will."
And then, after a kiss, Gell sat on a low stool at Bessie's feet, stretched his long legs towards the fire, and began to pour out his story.
He had seen Stowell and the matter had turned out just as she had expected. Splendid fellow! Best chap in the world, bar none!
"But what do you think, Bess? The most extraordinary coincidence! Dear old Vic, he has been busy falling in love, too! Fact! Fenella Stanley, daughter of the Governor! Magnificent girl, and Vic is madly in love with her! So there's to be no heart-breaking on either side, and that's the best of it. Makes one think there must be something in Providence, doesn't it?"
He was laughing so loud that the china in the room rang, but Bessie was turning cold with terror.
"And .... what about your father?" she faltered.
"My father?"
"Well .... to tell you the truth there was a bit of a breeze there," he said, and then followed the story of the scene at the Speaker's.
"But no matter! I'm not without money, so we can be married at once, and the sooner the better."
"But Alick," she said (he was stroking her hand and she was trying to draw it away), "do you think it's best?"
"Best? Why, of course I think it's best. Don't you?"
She did not reply.
"Don't you?" he said again, and then, getting no answer, he became aware that she, who had been so eager for their marriage before he went to Ballamoar, was now holding back.
"Bessie," he said, "has anything happened while I've been away?"
"No! Oh no!"