"What you suppose I can say to the authorities, feeling as I do, I don't know."
"I know." She came a step nearer. "Make them see that Greta can do them one last greatest harm of all. Oh, she'll have the best of it yet if you don't do something to stop them! Can't you see?"
He shook his head.
"Well, just think! They've got her absolutely in their power. That's an awful responsibility. They can do what they like with her. They think she can't retaliate any more, but you show them she can. Oh, she'll have her revenge if she can goad them into being cruel! I thought I was asking you to do something for my sake, for our two sakes, when I came here. But I see now you'll do worse than make me miserable as long as I live if you let them—kill Greta. You'll be doing a bad service to England."
"You mean," he said, "that because she's a woman—"
"Let them think that if they like!" She watched him hobble to the bell. "Oh, kind and dear—"
Two days Gavan spent seeing people, pulling strings, arguing, urging. Unblushingly he used his friends, he pledged his credit. He had never worked harder in his life; and then, to save their faces, the authorities said they had never intended the death-penalty for the woman. In England they didn't, and so on.
Napier took the news to Berkeley Street that same afternoon.
"But understand," he stood up before Nan's chair, leaning only on his stick, "it's right to tell you, no power under heaven will make me either in the near future or the far future, nothing will make me raise a finger to have that woman set free."