Gell made shift to answer for the sisters he had not seen for months, and then went off.
And then Fenella, taking the chair that Stowell had set for her, and dropping her voice to a deeper note, said,
"And now to business. You know we've established on the island a branch of the Women's Protection League?"
"I know."
"One of its objects is to protect women from the law."
"The law?"
"Yes, sir, the law," said Fenella smiling. "Your law can be very cruel sometimes—especially to women. But our first case is not one of that kind. It is a case in which the law, if rightly guided, can best do justice by showing mercy."
A young wife in Castletown had killed her husband. She had already appeared at the High Bailiff's Court and been committed for trial to the Court of General Gaol Delivery—the Manx Court of Assize.
"There seems to be no question of her guilt," said Fenella, "so we can neither expect nor desire that she should escape punishment altogether. The poor thing—she's scarcely more than a girl—will say nothing in self-defence, but when we remember how the soul of a woman shrinks from a crime of that kind we feel that she must have suffered some great injustice, some secret wrong, which, if it could be brought out in Court...."
"I see," said Stowell.