"Do you know that she ever had a child?"
"No .... I can't say .... She denies that also, and the medical testimony is far from conclusive."
"Do you know—are you satisfied—that if she had a child, and killed it, the child was yours?"
Stowell, with a gulp, stammered something about Bessie having been a good girl before he met her.
"But do you know anything?"
"Well, no .... I can't say...."
"Then, good heavens, what are you thinking about? Knowing nothing, nothing really, you are acting, and asking me to act, on a cloud of conjectures. I'll not do it."
Stowell drew his breath with a gasp of relief. It was just as if he had been living for days in the stuffy atmosphere of a sealed room and somebody had broken open a window. His head was down; the Governor touched his shoulder.
"My friend, you are doing that poor girl a cruel injustice."
Stowell was startled and looked up.