When he reached this point on his dark way he was horrified.
"What? A Judge break the law!"
He thought of his oath as Deemster and of the execration that would fall on him if found out. He remembered his father's motto: "Justice is the most sacred thing on earth." No, no, it was impossible! His honour as a Judge forbade it.
But, as the train ran on, the call of nature conquered and he asked himself what, after all, was his honour as a Judge compared with that poor girl's life?
"Nothing! Nothing!"
Bessie Collister must not die! She must not remain in prison! She must escape! He must help her to do so. Secretly, though, nobody knowing, not even the girl herself or Fenella.
At St. John's, a junction between the north of the island and the south, the Bishop of the island stepped into Stowell's compartment. He had been holding a confirmation service at a neighbouring church, and a company of young girls, in white muslin frocks, were seeing him off from the platform. While the carriages were being coupled he stood at the open door and said good-bye to them.
"And now go home, dear children, and have your suppers and get to bed. Home, sweet home, you know!"
But the children would not go until they had sung again in their sweet young voices the hymn they had just been singing in church—"Now the day is over." By the time the engine whistled and the train was moving out of the station, they had reached the verse—
"Comfort every sufferer,
Watching late in pain,
Those who plan some evil
From their sin restrain."