Bessie was breathing rapidly, and Fenella (still unconscious of the fearful game the unseen powers were playing with her) followed up her advantage.
"You can trust the Deemster, Bessie. He will be merciful to a girl who has stood silent in her shame to save the honour of the man she loves—I'm sure he will. And the Jury too, when they see that you did not intend to kill your child, they may .... who knows? .... they may even acquit you altogether."
Bessie was silent now, and Fenella could see, in the half darkness of the cell, that the girl's big pathetic eyes were gazing up at her.
"And then the people who have been thinking hard of you, because you have deceived them, will soften to you when they see that what you did, however wrong it was and even criminal, was done perhaps for somebody you loved better than yourself."
Suddenly Bessie dropped to her knees at Fenella's feet and cried,
"Very well, I will confess. Yes, it's true. I had a child, and I .... I killed it. But I didn't mean to—God knows I didn't."
"Tell me everything," said Fenella. And then, burying her face in Fenella's lap and clinging to her, Bessie told her story, mentioning no names, but concealing and excusing nothing.
Before she had come to an end, Fenella, who had been saying "Yes" and "Yes," and asking short and eager questions (the two women speaking in whispers as if afraid that the dark walls would hear), felt herself seized by a great terror.
"Then it was not Mr. Gell who took you into his rooms when your father shut you out?"
"No, no! Would to God it had been!"