rapidity. His days, filled as they were to overflowing with numberless
and complex duties, were yet the pleasantest he had ever known. At last,
he was what he had dreamed of being--an active factor, the most active
of all factors, in the advancement of his state. Redeemed, as if by a
miracle, from the disgrace which had laid her low, Alleghenia arose, in
his eyes, like a phoenix, throwing off the ashes of her reproach, and
blazing, with new wings of burnished beauty, in the sunlight of hope and
peace.
Barclay had retained his old office, not caring to make use of a room so
permeated with associations of recent tragedy as was that which had
formerly been Governor Abbott's. Now, with the windows open and the
soft May air stirring the papers on his desk, he sat, looking vacantly
across the room, with the huge petition spread out before him. His
attention, long absorbed by the problem in hand, was diverted by a tap
on the ante-room door, and, in answer to his call, Natalie Rathbawne
stood before him, smiling out of the exquisite daintiness of a fresh
spring frock.
"You've forgotten!" she said immediately, at sight of his knit brows.
"Forgotten what?" inquired the Governor inadvisedly.
The girl's little foot stamped almost noiselessly upon the thick carpet.
"Upon my word!" she exclaimed, "if there's one thing worse than being
engaged to the Lieutenant-Governor, it's being engaged to the Governor
himself! Forgotten, of course, that we are to lunch together, and look
at wall-papers afterwards! Do you know, John Barclay, I don't believe
you mean to marry me, after all? We'll be just approaching the altar,
when"--
She was interrupted in characteristic fashion, and disengaged herself,
with a great air of indignation, from Barclay's arms.
"If you want to take lunch in the company of a rag carpet," she said
severely, "that's the very best way to go about it. Get your hat."
There was a little pause as Barclay filed some papers in his private
safe, and then one startled word from the girl.
"_John!_"
Wheeling abruptly, he saw her standing at the desk, with her hand on the
petition, and her eyes, wide and wonderstruck, searching his face.
"Dearest!" he said impulsively, "I wish you hadn't."
But Natalie only laughed joyfully.
"But I'm glad, Johnny boy," she answered, "glad--glad--glad! What a
wonderful thing it is to be Governor, boy dear! I don't think I ever
really understood before. Think of it! To have the power of life and
death--to be able to right the wrongs of justice with a single stroke of
the pen. Oh, John! Sign it now--before we go. I shall be so much
happier."
The Governor made no reply. He stood, with his head bent, smoothing his
hat with the fingers of his right hand. Gradually the expression of
eager expectation on her face changed to one of anxiety.
"John," she said in a half whisper, "you _are_ going to sign it, aren't
you, boy dear?"
"I'm not sure," faltered the Governor. "I'm not quite sure, dearest. It
is the hardest problem I've ever had given me to solve. I can understand
now the meaning of something your father said to me just before the
strike,--that, for the first time in his life, he didn't know what to
do, because right seemed to be hopelessly entangled with wrong, and
wrong with right. When a man does evil in order that good may come, one
tries to find an excuse for him, tries to palliate his offense in any
reasonable way. That is human instinct. That is what accounts for the
petition there, with the signatures of many of the most conscientious
men in Alleghenia attached. They have managed to find the excuse, or
they think they have, which, so far as their personal convictions are
concerned, amounts to about the same thing. And I've been saying to
myself that when public opinion points out a course as justifiable it
can hardly be possible for a single individual to say that it is not.
And yet the wrong is there, isn't it? No matter how confused a question
may seem to us, there must absolutely, when we come to think of it, be
some one great elemental principle upon which it not only can, but must,
be decided--some boundary line between justice and injustice which we
may be too blind to see, but which exists, and calls for observance,
none the less. Right is right, wrong is wrong. No confusion between the
two can possibly exist except in appearance. Strive to elude truth as we
will, it remains eternal truth, and cannot be evaded in the end. And
where it seems to be beyond us, all we can do is to strive to find the
silken thread which will surely lead us out of the labyrinth into the
searching light of day. It is that clue which I have been groping for.
What is it? How am I to know it when I see it? What am I to do? At first
I thought the case was clear--what he said, you know--about Diogenes--it
seemed so odd--every one thought so--it might be construed as--as
insanity"--
"Oh, _no_, John! Why, _we_ know what that meant! No--no! The best part
of it all was his sanity, his wonderful courage, his braving of almost
certain death for what he believed--and knew, John--_knew_ to be right
and best. Think what he did for Alleghenia, Johnny boy. He has been
almost as great an instrument in her salvation as you. Think what he has
done for all of us--for you, in giving you this opportunity--for me--for
Dad! John, how _can_ you hesitate?"
The Governor shook his head.
"Dearest," he said, "you're on the wrong track, just as I have been, a
dozen times since the petition came. Don't you suppose I've thought of
all that? Its significance, not only to me, but, as you say, to the
state, is so tremendous that, at the first glance, it seems to be an
unanswerable argument. But--don't you see?--no sophistry, no
contemplation of the results achieved, can ever make it justifiable for
a man to arrogate to himself the power of taking human life, which is
the prerogative of God and the law alone. The peculiar circumstances of
Cavendish's crime plead eloquently, almost irresistibly, for his pardon.
He has saved the state--yes! But the case is one in a million, and it is
not an individual case alone which hangs upon my decision,--it is the
establishment of a precedent, the maintenance of a principle."
"But, John," broke in Natalie eagerly, "what you've just said--isn't
that the clue for which you have been groping? He saved the state! I've
heard you talk of Alleghenia too often, of what you hoped for her, and
what you despaired of ever bringing to pass, not to know what those four
words must mean to you. Think of it! _He saved the state!_ Without any
possibility of selfish object he did this extraordinary thing--made it
possible for Alleghenia to win back the honor and respect she had so
nearly lost forever! He killed the man who had no thought of her purity
and dignity, who used the power the people had given him for the
furtherance of his own selfish and wicked ends, who made her justice a
mockery, who played with her law as if"--
"Stop!" exclaimed the Governor. "Stop--I must think. Wait a moment. I
must think--I must think!"
After a minute he began to speak again, this time in a lower tone, a
tone which suggested self-communion rather than direct address to the
girl before him.
"Yes, that's it. Wait now,--let me be sure! He killed the man who had no
thought of Alleghenia's purity, who used his power to serve his own
ends, who made her justice"--he was speaking very slowly, dwelling on
each word as it left his lips--"her _justice_ a mockery, who played with
her law--her law--her _Law_"--
He paused once more, his brows knit, his firm hand slowly stroking his
chin. Then, of a sudden, he drew a deep breath, flung back his
shoulders, and looked at her. His eyes were blazing, his voice touched
with a new meaning, an eloquence deep, firm, conclusive.
"Natalie," he said, "come here."
"You've struck the keynote," he added, when they stood face to face, a
foot or two apart. "It isn't what you thought, or what you meant, but it
is the keynote, just the same. The Law!"
He wheeled slowly, and stepped forward, until he was directly before the
emblazoned arms of Alleghenia which hung upon his wall.
"_Justitia--Lex--Integritas!_" he said. "Many a time, when the way
seemed darkest, I've read those words over to myself, and found hope in
them. Events changed, crises came and went, portents loomed thick,
despair seemed omnipotent, failure and disgrace inevitable--but the
motto of Alleghenia remained the same. Steadfast, purposeful, and
commanding, it has endured through the trivial changes of political
significance which have been as impotent to sully the actuality of her
fair fame as are sun-spots to dim the radiance of the sun. It is only
natural, perhaps, that the discouragements which were but transient
should have seemed to me to be vital, damning, irremediable. Just as the
Israelites of old turned from the promises of God to worship Baal, so
have I turned from the assurance given me by these arms of Alleghenia,
to prostrate myself before false idols of doubt and despair. I should
have remembered how they called me, in the first instance, from a life
of idleness and ease, to fight my way through the desert of difficulty,
toward the promised land of honor. I should have remembered how in my
darkest hours they went before me as a pillar of fire, how in the famine
of my soul these words were the manna of encouragement, how in my thirst
they struck clear water from the rock of adverse circumstance. But the
Israelites came back to their true God at last; so I, little girl, to my
true ideal. The Law!--you said the word--the Law is the clue, the
keynote, the boundary between right and wrong!"
She was at his side, and he slipped one arm around her, and held her
close to him as with his finger he traced again the motto of Alleghenia.
"Do you know what this means?" he asked. "_Justitia_,--to be just to all
men, without fear or favor, lenient to our enemies, rigid and
unyielding, if need be, to our friends; putting aside personal
considerations, striving so far as in us lies to be impartial, merciful
in the face of prejudice, relentless in that of conviction--fair!
_Lex_,--to abide by the law, in spirit only if our inmost conviction
warrants that course, but in letter absolutely where there is the
smallest hint of doubt; secure in the knowledge that, however fallible
it be, it is the best that man has yet been able to do in imitation of
the immutable decrees of God. _Integritas_,--to be true to the oaths we
have sworn, faithful to the promises we have made, loyal to the office
intrusted to us by the people, to whom and for whom we are responsible.
Dearest, I am no mere man. Were I that, were I to consult my will alone,
and it lay, as now it lies, in my power to accomplish, Spencer Cavendish
should go free to-day. I know what he has done; I appreciate his
sacrifice; I see that by a single act he has accomplished what the rest
of us were powerless to cure; I admire his courage; I condone his crime;
I could forget all his weaknesses for the sake of this one great
evidence of his strength. And yet--listen to me, dearest!--in what he
strove to do he has failed utterly, if in removing a corrupt official
who made a mockery of Alleghenia's law he has not replaced him by one
who with all the force of his conscience and all the power of his
influence will see that law administered. And whatever we may say of his
crime, whatever its causes, whatever its wonderful results, it was and
is a crime. 'Thou shalt not kill!' God has said it; Alleghenia by the
voice of her law has ratified it. And not even the fact that Cavendish
has made possible all my fondest and worthiest hopes, the fact that he
has rescued from suffering all I hold most dear"--
Barclay suddenly covered his face with his free hand, as he had covered
it on that afternoon in Peter Rathbawne's library, weeks before; then he
looked up again, his lips trembling.
"Dearest," he said, "I am Governor of Alleghenia, and as such owe an
allegiance, an obedience, which personal prejudice cannot impugn. On
the day when you spoke to me of meeting Cavendish you pointed out the
course of a gentleman and a friend. On the night of the Ninth's
review you taught me the creed of an American and an Alleghenian.
To-day--unconsciously perhaps, but none the less surely--you have made
clear the duty of a public servant. God bless you, my life, my heart, my
conscience! May I be worthy of you and of the commonwealth I serve.
Where I doubted before, now I am sure. It is hard--God only knows how
hard--but listen to Alleghenia's bidding! _Justitia_, _Lex_,
_Integritas_,--equity, the code, and good faith, in the sight of God and
man, heaven and earth, the American people and the commonwealth of
Alleghenia. God save the state!"
"John," whispered the girl brokenly,--"John, you're right. God save the
state!"
Slowly, tenderly, the Governor of Alleghenia led her back to the table,
and taking up a pen, with a firm hand wrote five words, heavily
underscored, at the head of the Cavendish petition. And these were:--
"_Disapproved._
_John Hamilton Barclay_,
_Governor._"
Then, turning to the girl who loved him, he took her in his arms.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Lieutenant-Governor, by Guy Wetmore Carryl