How could he refuse? It would be his duty to issue the warrant—what excuse could he make for not doing so? And then what a temptation to let things go on as usual! Although he had broken prison, and therefore his oath as a Judge, how easily he might persuade himself that it had only been to snatch that poor girl from a wicked Statute!
Yet if Victor issued that warrant for the arrest of Gell he would be a lost man for ever after. No matter how high he might rise he would go down, down, down until his very soul would perish.
"It cannot be! It must not be! It shall not!"
She wanted to run to Ballamoar and say, "Don't do it. If you have done wrong confess and take the consequences."
Oh, what did she care about their quarrel now? It was no longer Bessie Collister's life, but Victor Stowell's soul that was in peril.
But no, she could not ask him to act under compulsion. He must act of his own free will. In the valley of the shadow of sin the guilty soul must walk alone.
"But is there nothing I can do for him?" she asked herself.
Yes, there was one thing—one thing only. She could pray. For long hours on the night before Stowell was to come to Government House Fenella knelt in her bed and prayed for him.
"O God help him! God help him! Help him to resist this great temptation."
At length peace came to her. Somewhere in the dead waste of the night she seemed to receive an answer to her prayers.