e he resists,
what will you do?"

"If he resists I will attack him with due force."

"You mean you will send your military and police to attack him?" The
gibe was covered, but it found the governor's breast. He knew what she
was meaning.

"You would not expect me to do police work, would you? Is that what your
president does? What your great George Washington does? Does he make the
state arrests with his own hand?"

"I have no doubt he would if the circumstances were such as to warrant
it. He has no small vices, and no false feelings. He has proved
himself," she answered boldly.

"Well, in that case," responded Lord Mallow irritably, "the event will
be as is due. The man is condemned by my masters, and he must submit to
my authority. He is twice a criminal, and--"

"And yet a hero and a good swordsman, and as honest as men are made in
a dishonest world. Your Admiralty and your government first pardoned the
man, and then gave him freedom on the island which you tried to prevent;
and now they turn round and confine him to his acres. Is that pardon in
a real sense? Did you write to the government and say he ought not to
be free to roam, lest he should discover more treasure-chests and buy
another estate? Was it you?"

The governor shook his head. "No, not I. I told the government in
careful and unrhetorical language the incident of his coming here, and
what I did, and my reasons for doing it--that was all."

"And you being governor they took your advice. See, my lord, if this
thing is done to him it will be to your own discomfiture. It will hurt
you in the public service."

"Why, to hear you speak, mistress, it would almost seem you had a
fondness for the man who killed your father, who went to jail for it,
and--"

"And became a mutineer," intervened the girl flushing. "Why not say
all? Why not catalogue his offences? Fondness for the man who killed
my father, you say! Yes, I had a deep and sincere fondness for him ever
since I met him at Playmore over seven years ago. Yes, a fondness which
only his crime makes impossible. But in all that really matters I am
still his friend. He did not know he was killing my father, who had no
claims upon me, none at all, except that through him I have life and
being; but it is enough to separate us for ever in the eyes of the
world, and in my eyes. Not morally, of course, but legally and actually.
He and I are as far apart as winter and summer; we are parted for ever
and ev