we are responsible.
Dearest, I am no mere man. Were I that, were I to consult my will alone,
and it lay, as now it lies, in my power to accomplish, Spencer Cavendish
should go free to-day. I know what he has done; I appreciate his
sacrifice; I see that by a single act he has accomplished what the rest
of us were powerless to cure; I admire his courage; I condone his crime;
I could forget all his weaknesses for the sake of this one great
evidence of his strength. And yet--listen to me, dearest!--in what he
strove to do he has failed utterly, if in removing a corrupt official
who made a mockery of Alleghenia's law he has not replaced him by one
who with all the force of his conscience and all the power of his
influence will see that law administered. And whatever we may say of his
crime, whatever its causes, whatever its wonderful results, it was and
is a crime. 'Thou shalt not kill!' God has said it; Alleghenia by the
voice of her law has ratified it. And not even the fact that Cavendish
has made possible all my fondest and worthiest hopes, the fact that he
has rescued from suffering all I hold most dear"--

Barclay suddenly covered his face with his free hand, as he had covered
it on that afternoon in Peter Rathbawne's library, weeks before; then he
looked up again, his lips trembling.

"Dearest," he said, "I am Governor of Alleghenia, and as such owe an
allegiance, an obedience, which personal prejudice cannot impugn. On
the day when you spoke to me of meeting Cavendish you pointed out the
course of a gentleman and a friend. On the night of the Ninth's
review you taught me the creed of an American and an Alleghenian.
To-day--unconsciously perhaps, but none the less surely--you have made
clear the duty of a public servant. God bless you, my life, my heart, my
conscience! May I be worthy of you and of the commonwealth I serve.
Where I doubted before, now I am sure. It is hard--God only knows how
hard--but listen to Alleghenia's bidding! _Justitia_, _Lex_,
_Integritas_,--equity, the code, and good faith, in the sight of God and
man, heaven and earth, the American people and the commonwealth of
Alleghenia. God save the state!"

"John," whispered the girl brokenly,--"John, you're right. God save the
state!"

Slowly, tenderly, the Governor of Alleghenia led her back to the table,
and taking up a pen, with a firm hand wrote five words, heavily
underscored, at the head of the Cavendish petition. And these were:--