She laughed merrily. "Oh, very well! You've refused me again! I'll remember it, Sir."
After the carriage had disappeared at the turn of the drive, Stowell went up to his room, shut the door behind him and covered his face in his hands.
Fenella hunting him down! Blindly, unconsciously, innocently, while urging him, entreating him, almost compelling him to sit on the case. The woman he loved and who loved him was trying to destroy him. Was this to be his punishment?
Mrs. Quayle? No, she would say nothing. If she thought it would injure his mother's son no power on earth would prevail upon her to speak. But sooner or later, by one means or other, Fenella would find out, and then....
"God be merciful to me, a sinner!" he moaned, smothering the sound of the words behind his hands.
Could he sit in judgment on Bessie Collister's case with all the forces of the defence (inspired by Fenella) directed towards branding the Judge as the real criminal? Impossible! Yet what could he do?
At length an idea occurred to him. He would go up to Government House, tell the whole truth to the Governor and ask to be relieved of his duty. It would be a terrible ordeal, but there was no escape from it.
"Yes, I will go up to the Governor in the morning."