"Manxman?"
"Yes."
"What class?"
Stowell felt his voice as well as his lips trembling. "Oh, good enough class, I think."
The Governor picked up his pipe from the table, charged it, lighted it, turned his chair towards the fireplace, threw his leg over the rail-fender and said:
"Fire away."
Then trembling and ashamed, but making a strong call on his resolution, Stowell told his own story—as if it had been that of another man.
When he had come to an end there was a long silence. The Governor pulled hard at his pipe and there was no other sound in the room except the rattle of the tram-cars in the street.
Stowell felt hot, his lips felt dry, and pushing back his black hair, he found sweat on his forehead.
"It was a shocking blunder, of course," he said. "My man doesn't defend himself. Still he thinks the circumstances...."