Fenella went home, happy, miserable, tingling with shame and yet thrilling with love also. Stowell's victim had brought her heart back to him. It was just because he had loved her more than he had loved that girl in prison that the worst had happened. It was just because she herself had persuaded, constrained and almost compelled him that he had sat on the case, not fully knowing what was to be revealed by it. This lasted her half-way home in the train, and then her wounded pride rose again. After all Victor had been faithless to the love with which she had inspired him. If a man loved a woman it was his duty to keep himself pure for her. Victor had not done so, therefore she would never forgive him--never! The Governor's carriage met her at the Douglas station, and when (wiping the scorching tears from her eyes) she reached Government House, she found another carriage standing by the porch. "Miss Janet Curphey is here to see you, miss," said the maid. II From the day of the trial, when Victor had returned home with a white face and said, "It doesn't matter now," Janet had known what had occurred. That Collister girl had corrupted Victor. She had always feared it would be so since "Auntie Kitty" had whispered over her counter that that "forward thing" of Liza Corteen's was boasting that Mr. Stowell had been "sooreying" with her in the glen. And now she had brought him under the very shadow of shame itself, just when life looked so bright and joyful. Then came the insular newspaper with an account of Fenella's outburst at the trial. That was the cruellest blow of all. She had loved Fenella, and had always thought there would be nothing so sweet as to spread her wedding-bed for her, but now that she had taken sides against Victor and publicly denounced him, Janet's blood boiled. She would go up to Government House and give Fenella a piece of her mind. Why shouldn't she? It was a dull afternoon when she set off for Douglas, and as she drove along the coast road she rehearsed to herself the sharp things she was going to say. But when Fenella came into the drawing-room, looking so pale as to be scarcely recognisable as the radiant girl she used to be, and kissed her and sat by her side, Janet could scarcely say anything. At length (Miss Green, who had been sitting at tea with her, having gone) Janet braced herself, and said, not without a tremor, "I've come about Victor." "Then he has told you?" said Fenella. "'Deed he hasn't, and you needn't either, because I know." Fenella drew her hand away and dropped her head. "I don't say he hasn't done wrong," said Janet, "but you seem to think he's the only one who is to blame." "Oh no! I see now that the girl in Castle Rushen...." "The girl? I'm not thinking about the girl. Of course she is to blame. But is there nobody else to blame also?" "Who else?" "Yourself." "Janet!" "Oh, I'm telling you the truth, dear. That's what I've come for."