eak for
himself--I cannot take that view. In my belief Hurd's act was murder,
and deserves the penalty of murder. I have paid some attention to these
things. I was a practising barrister in my youth, and later I was for
two years Home Secretary. I will explain to you my grounds very
shortly."

And, bending forward, he gave the reasons for his judgment of the case
as carefully and as lucidly as though he were stating them to a
fellow-expert, and not to an agitated girl of twenty-one. Both in words
and manner there was an implied tribute, not only to Marcella, but
perhaps to that altered position of the woman in our moving world which
affects so many things and persons in unexpected ways.

Marcella listened, restlessly. She had drawn her hand away, and was
twisting her handkerchief between her fingers. The flush that had sprung
up while she was talking had died away. She grew whiter and whiter. When
Lord Maxwell ceased, she said quickly, and as he thought unreasonably--

"So you will not sign?"

"No," he replied firmly, "I cannot sign. Holding the conviction about
the matter I do, I should be giving my name to statements I do not
believe; and in order to give myself the pleasure of pleasing you, and
of indulging the pity that every man must feel for every murderer's wife
and children, I should be not only committing a public wrong, but I
should be doing what I could to lessen the safety and security of one
whole class of my servants--men who give me honourable service--and two
of whom have been so cruelly, so wantonly hurried before their Maker!"

His voice gave the first sign of his own deep and painful feeling on the
matter. Marcella shivered.

"Then," she said slowly, "Hurd will be executed."

Lord Maxwell had a movement of impatience.

"Let me tell you," he said, "that that does not follow at all. There is
_some_ importance in signatures--or rather in the local movement that
the signatures imply. It enables a case to be reopened, which, in any
event, this case is sure to be. But any Home Secretary who could decide
a murder case on any other grounds whatever than those of law and his
own conscience would not deserve his place a day--an hour! Believe me,
you mistake the whole situation."

He spoke slowly, with the sharp emphasis natural to his age and
authority. Marcella did not believe him. Every nerve was beginning to
throb anew with that passionate recoil against tyranny and prejudice,
which was in itself