“What help will you ask of me that I cannot give?  That would be hard to bear!”

Still held by him, she answered his question by another: 

“Give me your idea of what will happen.  Tell me how you think it will end.”

“I shall only distress you, dear,” he said sadly.

“No; tell me.  You think him guilty.  You believe he will be convicted.”

“Unless some wholly fresh evidence is forthcoming,” he said reluctantly, “I can see no other issue.”

“Very well; then he will be sentenced to death.  But, after sentence—­I know—­that man from Widrington, that solicitor told me—­if—­if strong influence is brought to bear—­if anybody whose word counts—­if Lord Maxwell and you, were to join the movement to save him—­There is sure to be a movement—­the Radicals will take it up.  Will you do it—­will you promise me now—­for my sake?”

He was silent.

She looked at him, all her heart burning in her eyes, conscious of her woman’s power too, and pressing it.

“If that man is hung,” she said pleadingly, “it will leave a mark on my life nothing will ever smooth out.  I shall feel myself somehow responsible.  I shall say to myself, if I had not been thinking about my own selfish affairs—­about getting married—­about the straw-plaiting—­I might have seen what was going on.  I might have saved these people, who have been my friends—­my real friends—­from this horror.”

She drew her hands away and fell back on the sofa, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes.  “If you had seen her this morning!” she said in a strangled voice.  “She was saying, ’Oh, miss, if they do find him guilty, they can’t hang him—­not my poor deformed Jim, that never had a chance of being like the others.  Oh, we’ll beg so hard.  I know there’s many people will speak for him.  He was mad, miss, when he did it.  He’d never been himself, not since last winter, when we all sat and starved, and he was driven out of his senses by thinking of me and the children.  You’ll get Mr. Raeburn to speak—­won’t you, miss?—­and Lord Maxwell?  It was their game.  I know it was their game.  But they’ll forgive him.  They’re such great people, and so rich—­and we—­we’ve always had such a struggle.  Oh, the bad times we’ve had, and no one know!  They’ll try and get him off, miss?  Oh, I’ll go and beg of them.’”

She stopped, unable to trust her voice any further.  He stooped over her and kissed her brow.  There was a certain solemnity in the moment for both of them.  The pity of human fate overshadowed them.  At last he said firmly, yet with great feeling: