on him with his stick up, threatening and abusing him,
as he had done often before, in a fit of wild rage he shot at him.
Surely, _surely_ that is conceivable? There _is_--there _must_ be a
doubt; or, if it is murder, murder done in that way is quite, quite
different from other kinds and degrees of murder."

Now she possessed herself. The gift of flowing persuasive speech which
was naturally hers, which the agitations, the debates of these weeks had
been maturing, came to her call. She leant forward and took up the
petition. One by one she went through its pleas, adding to them here and
there from her own knowledge of Hurd and his peasant's life--presenting
it all clearly, with great intellectual force, but in an atmosphere of
emotion, of high pity, charged throughout with the "tears of things." To
her, gradually, unconsciously, the whole matter--so sordid, commonplace,
brutal in Lord Maxwell's eyes!--had become a tragic poem, a thing of
fear and pity, to which her whole being vibrated. And as she conceived
it, so she reproduced it. Wharton's points were there indeed, but so
were Hurd's poverty, Hurd's deformity, Hurd as the boyish victim of a
tyrant's insults, the miserable wife, the branded children--emphasised,
all of them, by the occasional quiver, quickly steadied again, of the
girl's voice.

Lord Maxwell sat by his writing-table, his head resting on his hand, one
knee crossed over the other. Aldous still hung over her chair. Neither
interrupted her. Once the eyes of the two men met over her head--a
distressed, significant look. Aldous heard all she said, but what
absorbed him mainly was the wild desire to kiss the dark hair, so close
below him, alternating with the miserable certainty that for him at that
moment to touch, to soothe her, was to be repulsed.

When her voice broke--when she had said all she could think of--she
remained looking imploringly at Lord Maxwell.

He was silent a little; then he stooped forward and took her hand.

"You have spoken," he said with great feeling, "most nobly--most
well--like a good woman, with a true compassionate heart. But all these
things you have said are not new to me, my dear child. Aldous warned me
of this petition--he has pressed upon me, still more I am sure upon
himself, all that he conceived to be your view of the case--the view of
those who are now moving in the matter. But with the best will in the
world I cannot, and I believe that he cannot--though he must sp