"In your own mind you are finding her guilty before she has been tried."
"Ah!"
"You are doing yourself an injustice, too. Even if the girl committed this crime—I say if—you are not responsible for it."
Stowell began to stammer again. "I .... I did wrong in the first instance, Sir, and nothing but wrong...."
But the Governor said sharply, "Of course you did wrong in the first instance. But that has nothing to do with the wrong which she (if she is guilty) has done since. It can't be supposed that you had any sympathy with her act, can it?"
"God forbid!"
"Did you desert her? Did you leave her to the mercy of the world? Has she ever been in want? Was she in any danger of being unable to provide for her offspring when it came?"
"No .... I cannot say...."
"Then what folly to think you are responsible for what she did in taking the life of her child—if she did take it. No, other facts and motives operated with the girl. And whatever those facts and motives were, you, so far as I can see, had nothing to do with them—nothing whatever."
Stowell's pulse was beating high. He tried to say something about his moral responsibility, but again the Governor cut him short.