"Where's young Gell, the Advocate?"
"In his rooms in Athol-street .... I presume."
"Find out for certain. Come back at four this afternoon and bring that blockhead of a jailer with you. And listen" (the men were leaving the room), "try to keep this ridiculous thing quiet. If it gets into the papers across the water all England will be laughing at us."
The Governor was again at the window, watching the Attorney-General's carriage going rapidly down the drive, when he saw a hackney car, containing Fenella, coming up to the house.
That sight started a new order of ideas. He remembered Stowell's threat—"If you order that girl's execution, it shall never be carried out, because I shall prevent it." For three days he had understood this to mean that the Deemster would appeal over his head to the Imperial authorities. But Stowell had not done so—he wasn't such a fool, he had remembered the bedevilments of his own position. So the Governor had dismissed the thought, and his anger at the son of his old friend had subsided. But now the threat came back on him with a new interpretation. Could it be possible? Such an unheard-of thing?
As soon as Fenella entered the house he called her into his room and shut the door behind her.
"You have just come from Castletown?"
"Yes, father."
"Then you know what has happened?"
"Yes."