Later in the day Stowell was alone in the library reading the Depositions. In his secret heart he knew that a wicked temptation had come to him--the temptation to get Bessie off, and to stop the flood of evil which would surely follow if Deemster Taubman tried her and she were condemned. But all the same he was struggling to drown his qualms in contempt of the case against her. How little there was to it! The direct evidence was almost childish. The medical testimony was the only thing of consequence, but how sloppy, how inconclusive! Was there anything against Bessie which he, if he had been the advocate for the defence, could not have riddled with as many holes as there were in a cullender? Then why shouldn't he sit on her case? Guilty? Perhaps she was; but, even so, was it not the theory of the law that she had to be proved guilty--that a prisoner should have a fair legal trial and be convicted or acquitted according to the evidence before the Court? Why shouldn't he? Suddenly he became aware of a tumult at the front door. Somebody was bawling in a loud voice, "I'll see the Dempster if I have to shout the house down." It was Dan Baldromma. Stowell stepped into the hall and said to the housemaid, who was barring the door against the intruder, "Let him come in, Jane." Dan, with his short, gross figure, rolled into the house without remembering to take his hat off. "Well, what do you want?" said Stowell--he was quivering with anger. "I want to know what is to be done for me?" said Dan. "For you?" "For my daughter then--my step-daughter, I mane." When he had seen Mr. Sto'll last--it was at his office in Ramsey--he had warned him that the man who had got his daughter into disgrace had got to marry her. But had he? No! He had refused--he must have done. And that was the reason why she did what they say. But, behold you, who was being blamed for it? Himself! Yes, people were looking black at him and saying he had thrown the girl into the way of temptation. That was not the worst of it either. He had expected dacent tratement about the farm when he became father-in-law to the man who would come into it by heirship. But now the girl was in Castle Rushen, and if they sent her over the water the Spaker would be turning him out of house and home. "He's after threatening it already--to show me the road at Hollantide .... What's that you say, Sir? Thinking of myself, am I? Maybe I am, then, and what for shouldn't I? Near is my shirt but nearer is my skin, they're saying." Stowell, swept by gusts of passion, was doing his best to control himself. "Well, what have you come to me for?" he asked. Dan thrust forward his thick neck with his bull-like gesture, and said, "To tell you to get her off." "Even if she is guilty?"