He had to get up early in the morning, reach Government House before the others had arrived, see the Governor alone and say to him in secret,
"I cannot issue this warrant for the arrest of Alick Gell for breaking prison to procure that girl's release because I did it."
What would happen then? The Governor (he was a just man if a hard one) would say,
"In that case, you cannot be a Judge in this island any longer."
But that would be all. Out of consideration for his daughter, and perhaps for the man who was to become his daughter's husband, the Governor would go no farther. Some show he might make of publishing the police notice, but he would never send to a foreign country.
There would be no scandal. The public would know nothing. They had heard that the new Deemster had been unwell, and would be told that his health had broken down altogether, and he had had to resign his office. It would be a month's talk, and then—Time would cover up the whole miserable story in the merciful vein in which it hides so many of our misdoings.
And Fenella? He would tell Fenella also. It would be a shock to her, but she would be on his side now. She would see that he had only tried to prevent a judicial murder, to secure the happiness of two unhappy creatures who, but for him, would have been plunged in misery. They would marry and go away from the island, to Switzerland perhaps, and live there for the rest of their lives.
"Yes, that's it, that's it," he told himself.
It was a cruel comforting—like the surgeon's knife, which, while taking away a man's disease, takes some of his life-blood also.
He thought of his father, how proud the old Deemster had been of his judicial position and how anxious that his son should succeed to it—it was pitiful. He thought of Fenella, what great things they had planned to do when he became a Judge, and now all their hopes had fallen to dust and ashes—it was agonising.