"But afterwards .... afterwards he changed his mind and turned you off .... I mean turned you over to somebody else?"
"'Deed no," said Bessie, with her chin raised. "It was me that gave him up after I found I was fonder of Alick."
Breathing hard, scarcely able to speak, with the hot blood rushing to her cheeks, Fenella compelled herself to go on.
"Did he know then that you...."
"No, miss, and neither did I, nor Alick, nor anybody."
"And when .... when was it that you went...."
"To his rooms in Ramsey? The first Saturday in August, miss."
Fenella went home, happy, miserable, tingling with shame and yet thrilling with love also. Stowell's victim had brought her heart back to him.
It was just because he had loved her more than he had loved that girl in prison that the worst had happened. It was just because she herself had persuaded, constrained and almost compelled him that he had sat on the case, not fully knowing what was to be revealed by it.
This lasted her half-way home in the train, and then her wounded pride rose again. After all Victor had been faithless to the love with which she had inspired him. If a man loved a woman it was his duty to keep himself pure for her. Victor had not done so, therefore she would never forgive him—never!