"I am listening."
"I had several interviews with the governor, and though he was very reserved in communicating his sentiments, I perceived that he really wished to pardon his petitioner."
"Then why, in the name of Heaven, did he not do so?" demanded Mr. Berners, starting up from his seat.
"Be calm and I will tell you," said Ishmael Worth, gently drawing him down into the chair.
Again Lyon Berners dropped into it with a deep groan.
"If it were not that trouble has so disturbed the clearness of your mind, you would yourself see that men in authority cannot do these things so suddenly. I repeat that I perceived that the governor would gladly have granted the pardon immediately upon the presentation of the petition, founded as it was upon such strong grounds, and he was only deterred from doing so by the fact that at the present point of time such a pardon would be a very unpopular measure."
"That a lady's innocent life should fall a sacrifice to a politician's selfish love of popularity!" bitterly commented Lyon Berners.
Ishmael Worth was silent for a moment, because he felt the injustice of Lyon Berners' remarks, yet did not wish to rebuke them, and then he said, deprecatingly:
"I do not think the governor's course here was directed by any selfish policy. He feels that he must be guided in a great degree by the will of the people, who are now most unjustly certainly, but most violently set against Mrs. Berners. So he sends down the respite, to which, under the peculiar circumstances, no one can object, and sends it as a prelude to the pardon which I believe will certainly follow when the popular excitement has had time to subside."
"Heaven grant it may be so," fervently prayed Lyon Berners.