"Was it Stowell I saw driving towards the mountain road as I came up?" "Perhaps it was," said Fenella. "Then why didn't he stay to dinner?" "Because .... I told him to go." "Why?" Fenella gulped down the lump that was rising in her throat and said, "I have been deceived in him. He is not the man I supposed him to be." "Don't be a fool, my dear. I understand what you mean. It is his conduct as a man, not as a Judge you are thinking of. But if every woman in the world thought she had a right to make a scrutiny into her husband's life before she married him there would be a fine lot of marriages, wouldn't there?" Crude and even coarse as Fenella thought her father's moral philosophy, she found her self-righteousness shaken by it. Perhaps she had been unfair to Stowell. But why didn't he come and plead his own cause? She couldn't talk to her father, but if Victor came and told his own story.... Victor did not come. For two days her pride fought with her love and she thought herself the unhappiest woman in the world. Then to escape from the pains of self-reproach she conceived the idea of a fierce revenge upon Stowell. She would devote herself to his victim! Yes, she would make it her duty to lighten the lot of the poor creature he had ruined and deserted. After a struggle, and many shameful tears, she went back to Castle Rushen, little knowing what a scorching flame she was to pass through. By this time Bessie was feeling no bitterness against Stowell. The jailer had told her that the Deemster could not have acted otherwise. The law compelled him to condemn her. But he had told the Jury to recommend her to mercy, and now he would be writing to the King to ask him to let her off. "Aw, he's good, miss--he's real good for all." "Do you say that, Bessie? After he has betrayed you?" said Fenella, "Betrayed? I wouldn't say that, miss." "But he .... he took you to his rooms?" "What else could he do, miss? All the inns were shut and it was raining, and I had nothing in my pocket." "But .... having taken advantage of your homelessness and poverty, he afterwards cast you off?" A mysterious wave of injured vanity struggled with Bessie's shame and she said, "'Deed he didn't, then. He wanted to marry me." "Marry you .... did you say marry...." "Yes, he did, and that was why he sent me to school." "But afterwards .... afterwards he changed his mind and turned you off .... I mean turned you over to somebody else?" "'Deed no," said Bessie, with her chin raised. "It was me that gave him up after I found I was fonder of Alick." Breathing hard, scarcely able to speak, with the hot blood rushing to her cheeks, Fenella compelled herself to go on. "Did he know then that you...." "No, miss, and neither did I, nor Alick, nor anybody." "And when .... when was it that you went...." "To his rooms in Ramsey? The first Saturday in August, miss."