He had sat still while Lord Castleton had spoken of the trial. Once the stunning news had overwhelmed him, he had become an automaton and not a man. Sea and sky melted mistily into each other, and mechanically from his mouth issued the empty sentences. But then the hours passed on, Castleton slept, the yacht lay at its moorings, and then--then a glimmer of reason and sense penetrated the dull concussion of that first shock. “Fenella,” he said, “Fenella;” it was a moan, a cry; not a human being asking for his wife, but a soul in anguish crying to its God. “Did you call, sir?” asked the mate, coming forward, touching his gold-braided cap; “did you call?” With bloodshot eyes Frank looked at him, saw beyond him: “Fenella.” “Any part of Guernsey, sir?” “I must get back, I must get back.” All that he was capable of was a wish to get back, to see her face again, to fling himself down on his knees before her, see that fair sweet face, that child’s face. Murderess they had called her, unfaithful he had called her, O Heaven! and she was his wife, and he---- And then he was in Guernsey again. She sat at her window, still, white, silent. The hours had crushed heavily over her, and spared her nothing. Not until now did she know, not until now did she realize all that her husband had been to her, all that she had looked for from him, all the hope that had illumined the dark days of her imprisonment, lit up her bare cell, flushed its soft light over the court-house that dreadful day, the day that until now had been the most dreadful day of all her life. A hundred eyes had been upon her, had burnt greedily into her soul--curious eyes, searching eyes, eyes all around. All the air was alive with voices--voices that rose and fell monotonous, persistent, dreadful. What were they saying? Now a sentence disentangled itself, now another. “The prisoner pleads guilty, my lord.” “The prisoner!” How curious it sounded. “The prisoner!” How should she know anything of prisoners, dreadful creatures, shameful, lowering, hideous? She had dreamed of them in her happy childhood, and awaking, shuddering, had hidden her face in nurse’s breast, or been soothed to rest again in father’s arms. “The prisoner is separated from her husband,” went on that monotonous voice. How strange, _she_ was separated from her husband; strange she should be like the _prisoner_, a shameful, disgraced prisoner. And dreaming she smiled, smiled in the dock, with a hundred opera glasses scanning her fair pale face, and a hundred naked eyes burning into her secrets. But the smile woke her, she had always smiled; but now, now it was a long time since she had smiled. What was she smiling at? Then she woke to the knowledge of her surroundings, and she shuddered in the dock; the sweet face grew white and convulsed; suddenly she burst out crying. Crying aloud, poor child, poor wayward child, who had meant to play through life, and woke from her playing--here.