"A crime?"

"A three-fold crime."

The Governor rose, crossed the floor, then drew up in front of Stowell and spoke with sudden energy.

"First, against the girl herself. She's an attractive young person, I suppose, eh?"

Stowell nodded.

"But uneducated, illiterate, out of another world, as they say?"

Stowell nodded again.

"Then does your man suppose that by sending her to school for a few months he will bridge the gulf between them? Is that how he expects to make her happy? Ten to one the girl will be a miserable outsider in her husband's house to the last day of her life. But that's not the worst, by a long way."

"No?"

"If he marries her it will out of a sense of duty will it not?"