"But what matter about the man?" said Gell. "It's the girl who has deceived me. I daresay I'm not the first either. Perhaps her step-father didn't turn her out for nothing. There may have been something to say for the old scoundrel." Choking with hypocrisy, Stowell found himself pleading for the girl. Perhaps .... who could say? .... perhaps she had been more sinned against than sinning. "Then why didn't she tell me?" said Gell. His voice was like a wail. "Who can say...." (Stowell felt a throb in his throat and was speaking with difficulty), "who can say she wasn't trying to save you pain .... knowing how you believed in her and cared for her?" "But if she had only told me," said Gell. "If she had only been straight with me!" Stowell felt himself on the edge of terrible revelations. But he controlled himself. If Bessie had concealed part of the truth what right had he to reveal it? After a moment of silent terror he asked Gell what he meant to do in the morning. "Advise her to amend her plea and cast herself on the mercy of the Court." "Yes, that is the only proper course now," said Stowell, and then Gell rose to go. It was a wild night. The wind was higher than ever by this time and the rain on the windows was rattling like hail. Stowell asked Gell to sleep the night at Ballamoar, secretly hoping he would refuse. He did. He had bespoken a bed at the Railway Inn near to the station--he must go up by the first train in the morning. Stowell saw him to the door, and held it open with his shoulder against the wind, which swirled through the hall, making the flame of the lamp on the landing to flame up in its funnel. Outside there was the slashing of leaves and the crackling of boughs among the elms around the lawn. "Well, good-night," said Gell, and turning up the collar of his coat, he went off in the darkness and the rain. Stowell turned back into the house with a sense of degradation he had never felt before. Oh, what a miserable coward a hidden sin made of a man! Sooner or later it would be revealed and then .... what then? Suddenly he was startled by a new thought. Bessie's confession would give the trial an entirely different turn. If she pleaded guilty in the morning there would be nothing for the Jury to do. Either they would have to be dismissed or instructed to bring in a formal verdict. The verdict against the prisoner would depend upon the Judges. That is to say, Bessie's fate would depend upon him--upon him alone! The first shock of this thought was terrible, but after a while he told himself that it came to the same thing in the end. The real responsibility was with the law. A judge was only the law's spokesman. For a given crime a given punishment. A judge did not make the sentence on a prisoner--he had only to pronounce it.