Bessie was the first to recover. She was full of hope and expectation, and visions of the future. Now that she had confessed everything the Deemster would tell the Jury to let her off, and then Alick would forgive her also.
"He will forgive me, will he not?"
She was like a child again, and Fenella found a cruel relief in humouring her.
"Yes, yes," she answered.
"When I leave this place I'm going to be so good," said Bessie. "I will make him such a happy life. We'll be married immediately—by Bishop's licence, you know—and then leave the Isle of Man and go to America. He often spoke of that, and it will be best .... After all this trouble it will be best, don't you think so?"
"No doubt, no doubt," said Fenella.
At length she remembered that Gell would be waiting for her. She must go to him. When she reached the corridor she paused, wondering what she was to say and how she was to say it. While she stood there she heard sounds from the cell behind her. Bessie was singing.
Meantime Gell had been fighting his own battle. The black thought which had come hurtling down on him at Derby Haven, when he first read the letter which Bessie had left behind her, was torturing him again. It was about Stowell, and to crush it he had to call up the memory of the long line of good and generous things that Stowell had done for him all the way up since he was a boy.
When at last he saw Fenella approaching he searched her face for a ray of hope, but his heart sank at the sight of it.
"Well?"