He rose, laid his pipe on the mantelpiece, and standing with his back to the fire and his hands behind him, his chin firm and his mouth set hard, he said, with sudden energy, "Now listen to me. I always knew that was your own story." "Yes?" "What I did not know was that any harm had been done. Did you?" "Indeed no." "Did the girl?" "It is incredible." "Do you know that she has killed her child?" "Not certainly. She denies it, and the evidence is not too convincing." "Do you know that she ever had a child?" "No .... I can't say .... She denies that also, and the medical testimony is far from conclusive." "Do you know--are you satisfied--that if she had a child, and killed it, the child was yours?" Stowell, with a gulp, stammered something about Bessie having been a good girl before he met her. "But do you know _anything_?" "Well, no .... I can't say...." "Then, good heavens, what are you thinking about? Knowing nothing, nothing really, you are acting, and asking me to act, on a cloud of conjectures. I'll not do it." Stowell drew his breath with a gasp of relief. It was just as if he had been living for days in the stuffy atmosphere of a sealed room and somebody had broken open a window. His head was down; the Governor touched his shoulder. "My friend, you are doing that poor girl a cruel injustice." Stowell was startled and looked up. "In your own mind you are finding her guilty before she has been tried." "Ah!" "You are doing yourself an injustice, too. Even if the girl committed this crime--I say _if_--_you_ are not responsible for it." Stowell began to stammer again. "I .... I did wrong in the first instance, Sir, and nothing but wrong...." But the Governor said sharply, "Of course you did wrong in the first instance. But that has nothing to do with the wrong which she (if she is guilty) has done since. It can't be supposed that you had any sympathy with her act, can it?" "God forbid!" "Did you desert her? Did you leave her to the mercy of the world? Has she ever been in want? Was she in any danger of being unable to provide for her offspring when it came?" "No .... I cannot say...." "Then what folly to think you are responsible for what she did in taking the life of her child--if she did take it. No, other facts and motives operated with the girl. And whatever those facts and motives were, you, so far as I can see, had nothing to do with them--nothing whatever." Stowell's pulse was beating high. He tried to say something about his moral responsibility, but again the Governor cut him short. "Your moral responsibility!" he said, with a ring of sarcasm. "I'm sick of this sentimental talk about moral responsibility--man's responsibility for the conduct of woman, and all the rest of it. The person who commits the crime is the criminal--that's the only foundation of law and order." "Then you think, Sir," said Stowell, "that since I...."