People said afterwards that Stowell was a full half minute in his seat before anybody seemed to be aware that he was no longer speaking.
The spectators had listened without making a sound; the jury (a panel of stolid Manx farmers) had sat without moving a muscle; the prisoner had raised her head for the first time during the trial and then dropped it lower than before and her shoulders had shaken as if from inaudible sobs; the Governor, who had all day been drawing geometrical patterns on the sheet of foolscap in front of him, had let his pencil fall and stared down at the paper, and the Deemster had looked up at the lantern light from which the sunlight (it had moved on) was now streaming upon his face, showing at last a solitary tear that was rolling slowly down his cheek to the end of his firm-set mouth.
Then there was a rustle, as if the windows of a room on the edge of the sea had suddenly been thrown open. The Attorney-General was speaking again. After the defence they had just listened to (there being no evidence to rebut) he would waive his right of reply—the Crown desired justice, not revenge.
The Deemster's summing-up was the shortest that had ever been heard from him. There were legal reasons which justified the taking of human life, but the cases to which they applied were few. If the jury thought the prisoner had wilfully killed her husband they would find her Guilty. If they were satisfied from what they had heard that she had reasonable grounds for thinking that a felony was being committed upon her which endangered her own life they would find her Not Guilty.
Without leaving their box the jury promptly gave a verdict of Not Guilty; and then the Deemster in a loud, clear, almost triumphant voice said:
"Let the prisoner be discharged."
A few minutes later there was a scene of excitement on the green within the Castle walls. The spectators, being turned out of the Court-house with difficulty, were waiting for the chief actors in the life-drama to come down the stone steps, and from the private door to the Deemster's room.
"Wonderful! He snatched the woman out of the jaws of death, Sir!" "The Deemster's a grand man, but he'll have to be looking to his laurels!" "Man alive, that was a speech that must have been dear to a father's heart, though!"
Stowell was one of the first to appear. He looked pale, almost ill, and was carrying his soft felt hat in his hand, for the Courthouse had been close and there was perspiration on his forehead still. A way was made for him and he passed through the courtyard without speaking or making sign, until he came under the arch of the Portcullis and there he was stopped by someone. It was Fenella. She was waiting for the Governor and hoping she might come upon Stowell also. Her eyes were red and swollen.
"How magnificent you were!" she said. And then with a half-tremulous laugh: "But how could you see into a woman's heart like that? I shall always be afraid of you in future, Sir!"