The Master of Man: The Story of a Sin

by Sir Hall Caine

"Oh, I know nothing about your laws," she cried, leaping up and crossing the room, "but they are unjust and barbarous and against reason and humanity if they allow a girl to be condemned to death for a crime like that while the Judge who was the first cause of it sits in judgment on his own victim."

"You are right there too," said Stowell, "but if you knew how I tried to avoid sitting on the case, and only allowed myself to do so at last in the hope of seeing justice done and thereby making some sort of amends....

"Amends!" cried Fenella. "What amends can there be for a wrong like that? Oh, I hate people who think they can make amends for one fault by committing another."

There was silence again for a moment and then Stowell said,

"You are right there also. There is a kind of wrongdoing that cannot be atoned for. I see that now. But if you knew how I have suffered for it and still suffer....

"Suffer? Why shouldn't you suffer? Isn't that poor girl suffering? Hasn't she suffered all along? And whatever you do for her now, won't she go on suffering to the last day and hour of her life?"

He dropped his head still lower under the lash of Fenella's scorn.

"That is not all either," she said in a broken voice, sitting on the sofa again and brushing her handkerchief over her eyes. "Perhaps that girl is not the only one who is suffering. I wanted to think so well of you, to be so proud of you. You were to be the defender of women, fighting their battle for them when they were wronged and helpless. And when you became a Judge .... Oh, I cannot bear to think of it. You have disappointed and deceived me. You are not the man I took you to be."

Outside the sun was setting. A dull ray from it was falling on his haggard face and brushing her bronze-brown hair.

"I thought you loved me too. It was so sweet to think you loved me—me only—never having loved anybody else. Every woman has felt like that, hasn't she? I have anyway. Other men might be faithless, but not you, not Victor Stowell. And yet, for the sake of your poor fancy for this country girl...."