"Don't say that, Stephen. When they were little they loved each other dearly. It was not until they grew up that they were different. And then others came between them--one other anyway, and--who knows?--perhaps she has been the cause of all this trouble."
"Has Oscar said so?" asked the Governor.
"He will say nothing against anybody," replied Anna. "That was always the way with Oscar. But if somebody tempted him and he was weak, and if our poor boy must go to prison while she----"
"There is a weakness that is wickedness, Anna, and must bear its pains and penalties."
"Yes, I know," said Anna. "I remember you said the same words long ago when the sailor lad killed his sweetheart in a fit of drunken passion. The mother was a widow and she came to ask me to plead with you for her son. He was a good boy, she said, and if it had not been for the drink he would never have hurt any one. You spared his life, you know, and he was sent to prison. And dear me, how the poor woman kissed me and wept on my face for joy! But she came to think that for her part it might have been better if her boy had died instead of being locked up for ever. She could never forget it, and when her eldest daughter was married and her house was full of people, and everybody was happy, she suddenly remembered and ran up-stairs to cry. And then on wintry nights, when the wind was moaning over the sea and she was putting the little boys to bed, she always thought of their brother lying alone in the big brown house up the road and round the corner. It wouldn't have been so bad if he had been sent away, she thought. And she was only a poor widow who washed at the hot springs."
The night wind was moaning over the sea at that moment, and the Governor, who had been walking to and fro, struggling to be righteous and severe, was feeling a pain in his parched throat.
He stood for some moments by the window, with his hands interlaced behind him, looking out through the dark pane on the flying moon, and then with an obvious inward effort he said:
"Anna, if I acknowledge this signature we shall have nothing left--nothing but my salary. Even my salary is threatened, and if it goes we shall be without anything in the world."
"Why should we think of that, Stephen?" said Anna. "We had nothing when we married, and yet we were very happy. It is true we were young then, and now we are old, but if poverty comes again we shall know better how to bear it. And if we have nothing else we will have each other--and our boys, too--both our boys--wherever they may be by that time--and neither of them will love us the less because we have given up everything--everything we had in the world--that they might still be honored and respected."
The clock struck twelve in the tower of the cathedral, with a reverberant ring that passed over the sleepy town, and the Governor stopped in his restless perambulation.