all appeals until she lifted her gasping baby close to my face, and almost screamed: 'Can you die in peace if you refuse to try to save my darling's father from the gallows? Will you see her in her coffin disgraced because you would not lift a finger?' So I am here, on a fool's errand, confronting humiliating defeat."
Mrs. Churchill's eyes were full of tears, and leaning forward she softly stroked Devota's beautiful hands.
"Oh, my dear – what a frightful ordeal for you! I would encourage you if I dared, but while the Governor is bland as May sunshine he is simply inexorable when once he decides a matter. Feminine wiles and feminine wails make no more impression on him than summer dew on an iron-clad; and his cool, smiling way of shieing at every suggestion of marriage makes me absolutely sure that some pretty, vixenish kitten of a girl has clawed and frazzled his heart strings. How I wish I could help you! Poor Amy – it is heart-breaking to think of her awful fate."
"You can help me by manœuvring to secure an opportunity for a brief presentation of Amy's appeal."
Mrs. Churchill clasped and unclasped a jewelled serpent at her wrist, and her brows contracted.
"That could easily be accomplished by his taking you in to dinner, but unluckily I am handicapped by the Bishop's wife who arrived only this morning and has precedence. Oh, the eternal unfitness of ecclesiastical ingredients in secular pie!"
"I am very glad he escorts Mrs. Roscoe, because I could not possibly broach my distressing business in the presence of a chattering dinner party, and I must obtain a private interview."
"I have arranged to consign you during dinner, to the tender mercies of your avowed naval worshipper, Captain Winstead, who is spending the week with his mother, and comes to us for this evening. The Governor and his secretary have exclusive use of the library, and sometimes they are shut up there after dinner. We can watch his movements, and you must storm the citadel and expel Mr. Walton who lives at his typewriter."
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