The Governor, who had sent ashore for the day's newspapers, remained in the cabin to read them. But Stowell and Fenella sat on deck under the moon and the stars. The air had become very quiet. There was no sound anywhere except the tranquil wash of the waves against the yacht and the whispering of the sea outside.
Fenella talked and laughed. Stowell laughed and talked. They found it so easy to talk to each other.
The night wore on. The moon going westward made the broken walls of the Castle stand up black above the shore, with its empty window-sockets like eyes looking from the lighter sky.
Stowell talked of the old ruin and its legendary and historical associations—St. Patrick, the spectre hound (the Mauthe Doa), the ecclesiastical prison and the graves in the roofless Cathedral.
"But I'll tell you a story that beats all that," he said.
"About a woman of course?" said Fenella.
"Yes—a fallen woman."
"Ah!"
"Her name was Kate Kinrade. She gave birth to an illegitimate child, and the Bishop—he was a saint—thinking that her conduct tended to the dishonour of the Christian name, ordered that, for the saving of her soul, she should be dragged after a boat across the bay of Peel on the fair of St. Patrick at the height of the market."
"And was she?"