“I owe him everything I possess in this world,” replied the governor, shortly.
“And, therefore, you must feel for his most unhappy child?”
“As if she were my own—yes, I do.”
“And you believe the daughter of so good a man free from the foul crime for which she is doomed to die?”
“I do not know; I am inclined to believe her so.”
“Then while you are disposed to believe her innocent, how can you consider the approaching execution in any other character than that of a judicial murder?”
The governor arose hastily from his seat, and walked up and down the floor of his office in great agitation.
Mr. Montrose, steadied by the concentrated intensity of his own purpose, sat watching the troubled governor.
At length the latter resumed his seat, and wiped his brow, saying:
“Why do you say all this to me, Mr. Montrose? I did not try her, nor condemn her, and shall not execute the sentence of the law upon her. Granted that her execution may be a judicial murder, I shall not have committed it, and I cannot help it.”