Chapter FORTY-ONE: In the Valley of the Shadow

"Good heavens, what does it matter? A lie is only dangerous when it does some harm!"

Stowell awoke on the second day after the escape putting his situation to himself so. Where was the harm if Gell was suspected? He had gone with the woman he loved. He was happy. What would Alick care about the evil name he had left behind him?

"Then where's the harm?" he asked himself.

He would let things go on as usual--of course he would. Only he must make sure that the fugitives had got clear away.

Remembering that he had seen placards of the Atlantic sailings in the railway-station, he walked over to the station from the glen. It was all right--a big Atlantic liner was timed to leave Queenstown at twelve that day. It was now half-past twelve. Gell and Bessie would be out on the open sea by this time--steaming past Kinsale where the Manx boats fished for mackerel.

"Where's the harm?"

But just as he was leaving the station with a sense of security and even triumph, a train from Douglas drew up at the platform. The guard shouted something to the station-master; and, looking back, Stowell saw a crowd gathering about a first-class carriage.

Somebody was being assisted to alight. It was the Speaker. He was utterly helpless. Between two members of the House of Keys the stricken man was half led, half carried to a dog-cart that was waiting for him at the gate.

His mouth was agape, his legs were dragging behind him, and his large hands were shaken by senile trembling. He did not speak, but as he went by he looked up, and Stowell felt that from his red eyes a mute malediction was being thrown at him.

When the dog-cart had gone, with the Speaker stretched out in it, stiff as a dead horse, and one of the Keys to see him home, the other joined Stowell and walked down the road by his side.

"Then your Honour hasn't heard what has happened?"

"No. What?"

There had been a sitting of the Keys that morning. The debate had been on some new scheme of land tenure--a thinly disguised form of confiscation. The Speaker had opposed it passionately, saying a man had a right to keep what he had earned and hand it on to his children. Then Qualtrough (a firebrand who possessed nothing) had taunted him with the unfortunate affair of yesterday. Why did _he_ want to hand on his land, his son having run away with the woman he had corrupted?

A terrible scene had followed. The Speaker had had one of his brain-storms. His neck had swelled until it was nearly as broad as his face. "Sit down, Sir," he had shouted, but Qualtrough had refused to do so. At length, overcome by the clamour of his enemies and the silence of his friends, the Speaker had risen to resign. Since he could not maintain the authority of the chair he had no choice but to get out of it.

It had been a pitiful spectacle. None of them who were fathers had been able to look at it with dry eyes. The old man was trembling like a leaf and his legs seemed to be giving way under him.

"They say the sins of the fathers are visited-upon the children, but maybe it's as true the other way about. I'm going blind and deaf. The sands of my life are running out...."

He swayed forward and they thought he would have fallen on his face, but the Secretary of the House caught him in his arms, and then two of them were nominated to bring him home.

"Sorry to say it to your Honour, being his friend," said the member of the Keys, as they parted at the turn of the road, "but that young fellow has something to answer for."

That lie had done harm then! Was this the mystery of sin--that it must go on and on, from consequence to consequence, deep as the sea and unsearchable as the night?

On returning to Ballamoar, Stowell found Janet in great agitation. Mrs. Gell had sent across to ask if Robbie could run into Ramsey to fetch Doctor Clucas. The doctor had come and gone. The Speaker had had a stroke. It was his second. The third would almost certainly prove fatal.

All that day Stowell was shaken by a chill terror. If the Speaker died would Alick Gell come back to claim his inheritance? If so he would hear it said on all sides that he had killed his father by the disgrace he had brought on him.

What then? Would he tell the whole truth under that terrible temptation, and thus bring down Stowell himself to ruin and extinction?

"But what nonsense I'm talking," thought Stowell.

Gell could never come back, because Bessie could never do so. Then who was to know that it was a lie that Gell had killed his father?

Suddenly came the thought, "_I_ am to know."

This fell on him like a thunderbolt. How was he to marry Fenella with a thought like that in his heart? It would be with him night and day. He might even blurt it out in his sleep. "Assassin! It was I who killed the old man by letting that lie go on."

Feeling feverish and unable to remain indoors, he went out to walk on the gravel path in front of the house. The fresh air revived him and he took possession of himself again.

"If the Speaker dies it will be the act of God," he thought.

He would be in no way responsible. Neither would Gell. If rumour charged the son with killing the father it would be a lie--a damned lie, manufactured by Fate, the great liar.

It was not as if Gell were in any danger--the danger of arrest for instance. _That_ would be different. But Gell was in no danger--none whatever.

"Therefore bury the thing! Bury it and go on as usual," he told himself.

The evening was closing in. It was beautiful and limpid. With a high step Stowell was walking to and fro on the path. Visions were rising before him of Gell and Bessie Collister on the big liner, ploughing their way through the darkening ocean to that free continent "where the clouds sailed higher"--Archibald Alexander and his sister Elizabeth going out to the new world to begin a new life.

He had visions of Fenella too--how he would go up to Government House to-morrow morning. "Tell him to come back to me," she said to Janet, and now he would go. How happy he was going to be!

"Surely I've a right to some happiness after all I've gone through."

He gave himself up to the intoxication of living by anticipation through those most blissful moments to a man and woman who love each other--the first moments of reconciliation after a quarrel.

Night had fallen. It was very dark. The late birds were silent, and only the soft young leaves of May were rustling in the darkness overhead with that gentleness that is like the whispering of angels. All at once a red light jogged up from the gate, making shadows among the trees that bordered the drive.

"Good evenin', Dempster! A letter for you, Sir."

It was Killip the postman.

"Thank you, Mr. Killip," said Stowell, taking the letter. He could not see it in the darkness, but at the touch of the large envelope a heavy foreboding came over him.

"I suppose you've heard about that affair, your Honour?"

"What affair?"

"Tommy Vondy. He's got himself kicked out of the Castle for letting that girl escape. The gorm! He's my first cousin, and he's in his seventy-seven, but he was always a toot, was Tommy!"

"Good-night, Mr. Killip."

"Good-night, your Honour!"

When Stowell returned to the porch he looked at his letter by the light of the lamp on the landing. It was from the Governor. He went into the Library and tore it open.

II

"DEAR STOWELL,--Of course you have heard what has happened. The
escaped prisoner must be recaptured and dealt with according to
law. And not she only, but her accomplice also. You know who
that is--young Gell. The evidence against him is overwhelming.
We have traced him almost to the door of the Castle on Sunday
evening, and find, too, that a trading steamer left Castletown
late the same night. There can hardly be a doubt that the
fugitives sailed in her. We must find where she has gone to and
bring her passengers back.

"Come here to-morrow morning to issue the necessary warrant and
assist Farrell to the 'distinguishing marks' which may be needful
for Gell's identification. I know there is a certain risk in
re-opening this wretched inquiry. I had hoped to bury it once
for all when I decided on what you thought the extreme step of
sending the guilty woman to the gallows. But law and order must
be upheld, and the sooner we can silence the people, who are
saying we are winking at the corruption of justice to spare the
son of the Speaker and the friend of the Deemster, the better for
everybody.

"Be here at eleven. We (the Attorney and the Chief Constable are
coming) will be waiting for you. Good Lord, haven't you been
long enough away from this house anyway? If there are strained
relations between you and Fenella let them be faced squarely and
straightened out at once--Yours, etc.,

"JOHN S. STANLEY, "_Brig.-Gen., K.C.B._

"P.S.--Fenella says you have a photograph of Gell which was taken
in America some years ago. It is probably the only one on the
island, and therefore invaluable to Farrel at this moment. Bring
it with you--don't forget."

Stowell was struck with stupor. Alick Gell _was_ in danger, then, and the whole situation was different.

Raising his eyes after reading the Governor's letter he saw Gell's photograph on the mantelpiece in front of him. At that sight a flame of passion took possession of him, and snatching up the picture he flung it in the fire.

"No, by God!" he said aloud. And if Farrell ever asked him for "distinguishing marks" towards Gell's identification he would take him by the throat and choke him.

But what about the warrant? Any Justice of the peace might issue it, but if the Governor asked him to do so the request would be equal to a command. Suppose he did, what would be the result? Bessie would be brought back and executed. Worse than that, even worse in its different way, Gell would be arrested and tried--perhaps by him, and under his warrant!

"No, no, no! It would be a crime--a base, cowardly, infamous, abominable crime!"

The veins of his forehead swelled as he thought of the trial. It would be more terrible than the other one. To sit in judgment on an innocent man, being himself the guilty one--not Jeffries, or Braxfield, or Brandon or Harebottle or any of the bewigged barbarians whose names befouled the annals of jurisprudence had done anything so awful.

"Never," he thought. "Never in this world."

Yet what alternative had he? After dinner (he had tried to eat to keep up appearances before Janet) he drew to the fire and tried to think things out. He had sat long hours in pain, and the fire had died down, when a kind of melancholy peace came to him and he thought he saw what he had to do.

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.

Was it necessary? Inevitable? To be cast aside on life's highway in suffering and shame everlasting; to be like a wretched ship that lies at the bottom of the sea, swaying to the ground-swell below, and moaning like a lost soul to the moans of the other wrecks in the womb of the ocean?

It was not as if he had injured anybody. He had done harm to nobody, and nothing. Yet he must do what he had thought of. There was no help for it.

It was late. The household was asleep. The log fire he had been crouching over had fallen to ashes on the hearth. He was shivering and he got up to go to bed. Before leaving the library he sat at the desk under his mother's picture and wrote--

"_Please call me at six. I must take the first train to Douglas._"

He was laying this on the table on the landing, lighting his candle and putting out the lamp, when he heard wheels on the carriage drive, and then a loud ringing at the front door bell.

Who could have come at this time of night? Candle in hand he went down and opened the door.

It was Joshua Scarff.