Selma espoused the case with ardor, and busied herself in obtaining signatures.  She called on Miss Flagg and induced her to sign by the assurance that the verdict was entirely contrary to the evidence.  She then had recourse to her former sister-in-law, conceiving that the signature of the President of Wetmore College would impress the English.  She and Pauline had already exchanged visits, and Pauline had shown no umbrage at her marriage.  The possibility of being rebuffed on this occasion did not occur to Selma.  She took for granted that Pauline would be only too glad to give her support to so deserving a petition, and she considered that she was paying her a compliment in soliciting her name for insertion among the prominent signers.  Pauline listened to her attentively, then replied: 

“I am sorry for the woman, if she is innocent:  and if she has been falsely accused, of course she ought to be released.  But what makes you think she is innocent, Selma?”

“The testimony did not justify her conviction.  Every one is of that opinion.”

“Have you read the testimony yourself, Selma?”

“No, Pauline.”

“Or your husband?”

“My husband is satisfied from what others have told him, just as I am, that this poor American woman is languishing in prison as the result of a cruel miscarriage of justice, and that she never committed the crime of which she has been found guilty.  My husband has had considerable legal experience.”

Pauline’s questions were nettling, and Selma intended by her response to suggest the presumptuousness of her sister-in-law’s doubts in the face of competent authority.

“I realize that your husband ought to understand about such matters, but may one suppose that the English authorities would deliberately allow an innocent woman to remain in prison?  They must know that the friends of Mrs. Hamilton believe her innocent.  Why should we on this side of the water meddle simply because she was born an American?”

“Why?” Selma drew herself up proudly.  “In the first place I believe—­we believe—­that the English are capable of keeping her in prison on a technicality merely because she is there already.  They are worshippers of legal form and red tape, my husband says.  And as to meddling, why is it not our duty as an earnest and Christian people to remonstrate against the continued incarceration of a woman born under our flag and accustomed to American ideas of justice?  Meddling?  In my opinion, we should be cowards and derelict in our duty if we did not protest.”

Pauline shook her head.  “I cannot see it so.  It seems to me an interference which may make us seem ridiculous in the eyes of the English, as well as offensive to them.  I am sorry, Selma, not to be able to do as you wish.”

Selma rose with burning cheeks, but a stately air.  “If that is your decision, I must do without your name.  Already we have many signatures, and shall obtain hundreds more without difficulty.  We look at things differently, Pauline.  Our point of view has never been the same.  Ridiculous?  I should be proud of the ridicule of people too selfish or too unenlightened to heed the outcry of aspiring humanity.  If we had to depend on your little set to strike the note of progress, I fear we should sit with folded hands most of the time.”