The Deemster came next. He was muffled in his great-coat and scarf, and was walking heavily on his stick, but there was a proud look in his uplifted face. With his left hand he grasped Victor's right, but he did not look at him, and he passed on without a word. Fenella followed, offering her arm, but he insisted on giving his—the grand old gentleman to the last.
But this time the Attorney-General had taken possession of Stowell. He had lost his case, but one of his "boys" had won it. "I've just been telling your father I always knew the root of the matter was in you," he said, and then others gathered around.
The Governor came last, having had documents to sign, and taking Stowell's arm, he carried him away, saying, "Come along—they'll kill you."
The Deemster's dog-cart had now gone, but the Governor's carriage was at the gate, with Fenella inside.
"Don't forget your promise about Ballamoar," she said.
"I'm going to-morrow," said Stowell.
Just then there was a commotion among the crowd. The liberated woman was coming out of the Castle, surrounded by a tumultuous company of her friends from the back streets. She saw Stowell by the carriage door, and breaking away from her companions she rushed up to him, threw herself at his feet, laid hold of his hand and covered it with kisses.
"That settles it," said Fenella, in a thick voice, after the woman had been carried off. "Now you know what the future of your life is to be—that of the champion of wronged and helpless women."
At the railway station, and in the railway carriage, Stowell's fellow advocates overwhelmed him with congratulations, but he hardly heard them. At last he folded his arms and closed his eyes, and, thinking he was tired, they left off troubling him.
On arriving at Ramsey his pulses were beating fast, and on going down the High Street, past the Old Plough Inn, he hardly felt the ground under his feet.