At the next moment she was conscious of somebody coming into her room, and at the next, from somewhere at the foot of the bed, she heard her mother say, in a strange voice she had never known before—throbbing, choking, scarcely audible—
"They have come for thee, Bessie."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
STOWELL IN LONDON
Victor Stowell had been more than a week in London. Fortune had favoured him from the first. The Home Secretary (a tall, spare, elderly man, with a clean-shaven face of rather severe expression) rose when Stowell entered his room as if a spirit had appeared before him. "My youth again," the young man thought, but it was a different matter this time.
"Has anybody ever told you that you resemble your father, Mr. Stowell?"
It turned out that the old Deemster and the Home Secretary (a barrister before he became a statesman) had been in chambers together in the Middle Temple while reading for the bar, and that the politician had never lost respect for the man who, in spite of brilliant promise of success in England (he might have become an English High Court Judge with six times his Manx salary), had returned to the obscurity of his little island and the service of his own people.
"You have high traditions to live up to, young man. Sit down."
Then came the subject of the interview. The authorities had satisfied themselves that on the score of legal capacity the Governor's recommendation was not unjustified. The only serious difficulty was Stowell's youth. The principles on which the Crown selected elderly and even old (sometimes very old) men for the positions of Judges were simple and sound. First, seniority of service, and next, maturity of character, so as to avoid the dangers that come from the temptations, the trials, even the turbulent emotions of early life, which might easily conflict with the calm of the judicial office. Still, these principles could be too rigidly followed—particularly in remote colonies and small dependencies where the range of suitable selection was limited.
After this came a personal catechism, the old man looking at the young one over the rims of his tortoise-shell spectacles. Married? Not yet. Expect to be? Yes, Sir. Soon? Not, not for a long time. How long? Six weeks at least, Sir.