"Before your Honour leaves the Castle?"
"Instantly."
The Inspector being gone (with the intention of disobeying the Deemster's command in order to ensure his safety), Joshua Scarff proceeded to read Gell's conduct by quite a different light. It was easy to see now that Mr. Gell had been the girl's fellow-sinner and therefore the cause of her crime.
"Pity! Great pity!" said Joshua, as he helped Stowell to unrobe. "But such connections always begin to end badly."
There were still a few of the spectators at the gate, waiting to see the Deemster away, and when he came out, with his white face, another wave of sympathy went out to him.
"They've been putting the young colt into the shafts too soon—that's what it is, I tell thee."
Driving over the harbour bridge in his automobile Stowell began to feel better. The fresh air from the sea, after the close atmosphere of the Court-house, brought the blood back to his brain, and he thought he saw things more clearly.
The Governor had been right. He could not have acted otherwise without being false to his oath as a Judge. And if the miserable fact remained that he should never have been the Judge in this case at all, it was Fenella herself, above everybody else, who had thrust him into the furnace of that position. Surely she would remember this, and it would plead in her heart for him?
Half-a-mile beyond the town he passed the Governor's big blue landau, and realised that by some half-conscious impulse he was taking the road to Government House instead of the direct way home. So much the better! He must see Fenella at the first possible moment, and find out what his fate was to be.
His spirits rose as he bounded along. Granted he had done wrong in the first instance, terribly and cruelly wrong, hadn't he had many excuses? If Bessie Collister had told her everything, surely Fenella would see this, too, and seeing it, would understand?