judge, jury, prosecuting
counsel and especially of Prince, who presumably has most to forgive.
The memorial of the inspectors, warden and physician was appended, and
constituted a eulogy upon the behavior and character of the prisoner;
especially the heroic service rendered by her during the recent fatal
epidemic. Human nature is an infernally vexing bundle of paradoxes, and
when a man throws his conscience in your teeth, what then? The argument
from which I hoped most, proved a Greek horse, and well-nigh wrought
ruin. When I dwelt upon the fact that the prisoner had voluntarily
conveyed to Prince all right and title to the fortune, which was
supposed to have tempted her to commit the crime, he bristled like a
Skye terrier, and grandiloquently assured me he valued his 'prerogative
as something too sacred to be prostituted to nepotism!' Prince being
his cousin, a readiness to exercise Executive clemency by pardoning the
prisoner, might be construed into a species of bargain and sale; and
his Excellency could not condone a crime merely because the culprit had
relinquished a fortune to his relative. Braying an ordinary fool in a
mortar is an unpromising job; but an extraordinary official
leatherhead, PLUS thin-skinned conscience, and religious scruples,
requires the upper and nether mill stone. You know, Churchill, it is
tough work to straighten a crooked ramrod."

"I see; a case of moral curvature of the spine. When he was inaugurated
last December, I chanced to be at the Capital, and heard two old
codgers from the piney woods felicitating the State upon having a
Governor, 'Fit to tie to; honest as the day is long, and walks so
straight, he is powerful swaybacked.' Dunbar, did he refuse outright?"

"He holds the matter in abeyance for maturer deliberation; but promises
that, unless he sees cogent reasons to the contrary, he may grant a
pardon when eighteen months of the sentence have expired. That will be
the last week in August, and almost two years since she was thrown into
prison. I should have made application to his predecessor, Glenbeigh,
had I not been so confident of overtaking the man who killed Gen'l
Darrington; but the clue that promised so much merely led me astray. I
went with the detective down into the mines, and found the man, who
certainly had a hideous facial deformity, but he was gray as a badger,
and moreover proved an ALIBI, having been sick with small-pox in the
county pest-house on the night of th