"Of course the girl is shielding him. A woman always does that. I should do it myself if I were in the same position. But oh, how I should like to find him out! Even if he has taken no part in the actual crime, how I should like to punish him—to expose him! You must sit on this case—you really must, dear."
When the time came for Fenella to go Janet took her upstairs to look at some new decorations that had been made in the room that was to be her boudoir. Stowell remained in the library, and the sound of Fenella's step on the floor above beat on his stunned brain with the drumming noise of a train in a tunnel.
He had a sense of cowardice which he had never felt before. At one moment he wanted to tell Fenella everything, thinking that would be the end of his tortures. But at the next he reflected that it would be the beginning of hers—inflicting an incurable wound upon her affection. And then if Bessie were going to be acquitted, as seemed possible (the evidence being so unconvincing), why should he enlarge the area of the shameful secret?
When Fenella returned (saying, as she came downstairs, how beautiful her room was and how proud she would be of it) he took her out to the carriage.
"Do you remember," she whispered (she had recovered her gay spirits, the coachman was on the box), "do you remember the first time you saw me off from here?"
He nodded and tried to smile.
"I was too bashful to shake hands and you were too shy to look at me."
And being seated in the carriage and the door closed on her, she said,
"By the way, wouldn't you like to drive over with me to Mrs. Quayle if I brought you home again?"
"No, no .... I mean...."