His voice was breaking. She looked at him. There were tears in his eyes. She could bear up no longer. With the cry of a drowning soul she flung her arms about him and sobbed on his breast. An hour later, having comforted and quietened her, Gell was going off with swinging strides through the mist to catch the last train back to Douglas. "She was thinking of me--that was it," he was telling himself. "Thought I would come to regret the sacrifice and wanted to save me from being cut off by my family. So unselfish! Never thinking of herself, bless her!" And Bessie, in her bedroom was saying to herself, "He's that fond of me that he'll forgive me, whatever happens." She lay a long time awake, with her arms under her head, looking up at the ceiling. "Yes, Alick will forgive me, whatever happens," she thought. And then she blew out her candle, buried her head in her pillow, and fell asleep. II When Gell reached the railway-station he found the carriages waiting at the platform, half-full of impatient passengers. A trial, which was going on in the Castle, was nearing its close, and the station-master had received orders that the last train to town was to be kept back for the Judges and advocates. "The Peel fisherman," thought Gell. And, remembering that this was the case in which Stowell was to represent the Attorney-General, he walked over to the Court-house, whose lantern-light was showing like a hazy white cloud above the Castle walls. The little place was thick with sea mist, hot with the acid odour of perspiration, and densely crowded but breathlessly silent. The trial was over, the prisoner had been found guilty, and the Deemster (it was Deemster Taubman, sitting with the Clerk of the Rolls as Acting Governor) was beginning to pronounce sentence: "Prisoner at the bar, it will be my duty to communicate to the proper quarter the Jury's recommendation to mercy, but I can hold out no hope that it will be of any avail. You have been found guilty of the wilful murder of your wife, therefore I bid you prepare...." And then followed those dread words in that dead stillness, which bring thoughts of the day of doom. Gell caught one glimpse of the prisoner, as he stood in the dock, in his fisherman's guernsey, looking steadfastly into the face of his Judge, and another glimpse as a way was cleared through the spectators and he walked with a strong step to the door leading to the cells. Then the court-house cleared to a low rumble that was like the muffled murmuring that is heard after a funeral. Gell asked for Stowell, and was told that his friend had gone down to the Deemster's room with one of the advocates for the defence to draw up the terms of the recommendation. Therefore he returned to the station with a group of his fellow advocates, and on the way back he heard the story of the trial--little knowing how close it was to come to him.