Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/159

 He had sat still while Lord Castleton had spoken of the trial. Once the stunning news had overwhelmed him, he had become an automaton and not a man. Sea and sky melted mistily into each other, and mechanically from his mouth issued the empty sentences. But then the hours passed on, Castleton slept, the yacht lay at its moorings, and then—then a glimmer of reason and sense penetrated the dull concussion of that first shock.

"Fenella," he said, "Fenella;" it was a moan, a cry; not a human being asking for his wife, but a soul in anguish crying to its God.

"Did you call, sir?" asked the mate, coming forward, touching his gold-braided cap; "did you call?" With blood-shot eyes Frank looked at him, saw beyond him: "Fenella."

"Any part of Guernsey, sir?"

"I must get back, I must get back."

All that he was capable of was a wish to get back, to see her face again, to fling himself down on his knees before her, see that fair sweet face, that child's face. Murderess they had called her, unfaithful he had called her, O Heaven! and she was his wife, and he—

And then he was in Guernsey again.

She sat at her window, still, white, silent. The hours had crushed heavily over her, and spared her nothing. Not until now did she know, not until now did she realize all that her husband had