“Thank you,” Fownes said and tore open the envelope. He read the message slowly, then stood staring at it thoughtfully while Carmel held her breath. She sensed a menace in the telegram, something which threatened her and her enterprises. He turned and peered at her, and there was something saturnine in his eyes, almost mocking. “I imagine this concerns you,” he said. “It is from Deputy Jenney. It may interest you.” He read, “‘Whitefield out for sheriff. Miss Lee left town in his automobile.’” He shrugged his shoulders. “I wondered how you got here,” he said after a moment. Then, “How did you get in here?” “That is the Governor’s affair, not yours,” she said. “True,” he answered. “Suppose we leave it with him.” He turned to the waiting servant. “Ask the Governor to step here, please. Tell him it is important.” Then to Carmel. “It will not be embarrassing for you to see the Governor?” “I came to see him.” “Uninvited.” She made no answer. She was frightened, quivering. What could she say? What could she do? When the Governor appeared and she was denounced to him as an intruder, as a woman who forced her way into a private entertainment, how could she reach his ear with her petition?... Would not the fact of her being an intruder make her case hopeless? She set her teeth. At any rate she would make a fight for it, and at worst there could be nothing but ignominious expulsion at the hands of some servant. The thought of that was unbearable. She was a woman, with a woman’s social consciousness and a woman’s delicacy. It seemed more terrible to her to be detected in such a breach of society’s laws than it would have been to be detected in a crime.... For a moment she was unnerved. She thought of her mission; of the public importance of what she was doing and the excellence of the motives which had brought her to do the thing she had done. This availed little. The humiliation, the public humiliation, would be as terrible. She meditated flight.... But then there arose in her a stubbornness, a resolution. Back of it was this thought--“_He_ is depending on me. _He_ sent me to do this. _He_ looks to me to succeed.” The _he_ was emphasized. It did not occur to her to wonder how Evan Bartholomew Pell came to be of such importance to her in this moment, or why the fact that he was relying upon her should sustain her in this crisis. Nevertheless, it was so. She felt she would possess his approval, no matter what came, if she persisted, if she did not give up so long as there was the shadow of a chance of success. She felt, she knew, he would consider as negligible any sneer of society, any personal humiliation sustained. She knew he would persist, and from this she drew strength....