Susan Keating Glaspell

“ Governor, just suppose that the person dearest to you in all the world was dying, and that you were shut up somewhere and they wouldn't let you out to take care of her—to bathe her head, Governor, when it ached so hard, to hold her when she coughed, to love her and—and make it easier for her. ”

“ But there are only two instances which justify an exercise of the pardon power: when it can be shown justice was not done in the trial, or where there are such extenuating circumstances to make the crime less great in reality than shown to be under the technical construction of the law." He paused, and some way he could feel that the face of the newspaper man had grown red. "I do not find," he went on, his voice trying to take the sting from the words, "that your husband's case falls under either of these."
The woman pulled her chair close to the Governor's desk, and put out a shaking hand. ”

“ IT was a very cutting editorial, and a very strong one. The Governor read it through twice, and then he spread it out on the desk before him, and sat there looking at it.
"In one respect Governor Henderson is proving a disappointment," it ran. "He is buying his personal comfort at the expense of justice. He finds it more pleasant to say yes than to say no; it is easier for him to grant the requests of sorrowing wives, mothers, daughters and sisters than it is to refuse them, and so it has become a matter of personalities with him rather than of justice. ”

“ The really hard part of it was that the Governor was forced to concede that upon this, as upon other subjects, the Record's editorial was well balanced, far-seeing and fair. But he did not believe Morton appreciated how hard he had struggled, in many instances, against his so-called buying of his personal comfort.
A card was handed the Governor at that moment, and he looked at it, and frowned. Mrs. Frank Payne was a woman he did not care, at this time of all others, to see. ”

“ Don't you see what an awful, awful thing it would be to die alone? To be alone—think of it!—all alone—when you were in pain and dying. Oh!—I can't tell it right; it's hard to talk—but—" and then, in sheer weakness, her voice broke, and again the Governor attempted to raise her, but she clung tightly to the desk, and after a minute went on more quietly:—
"My father has given me some money. ”