"In the next place, it would be a crime against the man himself. He's a young fellow of some prospects, I suppose?" "I .... I think so." "And the girl has some family, hasn't she?" "Yes." "They may be good and worthy folk of whom he would have no reason to be ashamed. But isn't it just as likely that they are people of quite another kidney? Sisters and brothers and cousins to the tenth degree? Some vulgar and rapacious old father, perhaps, who hasn't taken too much trouble to keep the girl out of temptation while she has been at home, but freezes on to her fast enough after she has made a good marriage. Possible, isn't it?" "Quite possible, sir." "Well, what are your man's own friends going to do with him with a menagerie like that at his heels? No, he has fettered himself for life to failure as well as misery, and while his wife is railing at him about the other woman he is reproaching her with standing in his light. So the end of his noble endeavour is that he has set up a little private hell for himself in the house he calls his home." Stowell was wincing at every word, but all the same he knew that his eyes were shining. The Governor looked sharply up at him for a moment, lit his pipe afresh and said, "Then there's the other woman. I suppose her case is worthy of some consideration?" "Indeed, yes." "If she cares for the man...." "I can't say that, Sir." "Well, if she does, she too will suffer, will she not? And what has she done to deserve suffering? Nothing at all! She's the innocent scapegoat, isn't she?" "That's true." "Fine woman, I suppose?" "The finest woman in the world, Sir." "Just so! But your man would doom her to renunciation--a solitary life of sorrow and regret. And so the only result of his praiseworthy principles, his sense of duty, as you say, and all the rest of it, is that he will have ruined three lives--the life of the woman he marries and does not love, the life of the woman he loves and does not marry, and his own life also." "Then you think, Sir .... you think he should stop even yet?" "Even at the church door, at the altar-steps--if there's no harm done, and he is sure she is the wrong woman." Stowell felt as if the vapours which had clouded his brain so long had been swept away as by a mountain breeze, but he thought it necessary to keep up the disguise. "I feel you must be right, sir," rising to go. "At all events I cannot argue against you. But I think you'll agree that .... that if my man can wipe out this bad passage in his life without injury to anybody and without scandal .... I think you will agree that his first duty is to tell the woman he loves...." "Eh? What the deuce .... Good heavens, no!" "But surely he couldn't ask a pure-minded girl...."