Men were all alike. Go on, she knew what men were! A man only wanted one thing of a girl, and when he got that he forgot all about her. Alick Gell was the best of them, yet even he had forsaken her now that she was in trouble.
She had never intended to do harm to anybody, and yet there she was, and would remain, until they came to take her to the Court-house on the other side of the Castle-yard. Then hundreds of eyes would be on her (women's eyes too) and when she raised her own she would see Mr. Stowell on the bench.
What a mockery! Mr. Stowell her judge! What would he do? His "duty" of course. All right, let him do it! Only she, too, would do something. After he had tried her and sentenced her and finished with her, she would tell him something. Why shouldn't she? And what did she care what happened to anybody else? Fenella Stanley was nothing to her.
Suddenly she thought again about Alick Gell. If she did what she intended to do (tell everything) Alick also would be disgraced. The shame of her misfortune would follow him to the last day of his life. Even his own father would cast it up to him. Hadn't she done enough harm to Alick already? If he had deserted her, she had deceived him. And yet she had deceived him only because she loved him.
Her heart was crying. She was wishing she were dead.
She had flung herself down on her plank bed, with her face to the blank wall, when she heard the dead beating of footsteps in the corridor outside. At the next moment the door of her cell was opened and Tommy Vondy, the jailer, was saying,
"Mr. Alexander Gell, the advocate, to see you alone."
The jailer had gone. Alick was breathing quickly in the darkness by the door, and Bessie was huddled up on the bed, with the dull ray of reflected light upon her from the wall above.
His voice was low and full of tears. At first she did not answer.
"You won't send me away, Bessie. I have been looking for you all over the island. It was only to-day I heard where you were and what had happened. I have come to help you--to save you."
With a great sob that shook her whole body she rose to her feet and flung herself upon him. For a long time they stood clasped in each other's arms, and crying like children. Then they sat down side by side on the plank bed. His arm was about her, and her head was on his shoulder.