utline, a few bold strokes; but the people in
England who saw it a couple of days later felt as if the artist had
deliberately lifted a curtain and shown to them a man's wrung soul. And
everyone who saw it said, "That man is innocent!"

Trevor Mordaunt said it himself many times that day before and after the
making of the sketch. He knew, as well as did the prisoner himself, that
there would be no acquittal. Almost from the commencement of the trial he
had known it. But he knew also that two at least of the judges were
disposed towards leniency, and upon this fact he based such slender hopes
as he entertained on the prisoner's behalf. As a fellow-correspondent--a
Frenchman--had remarked to him earlier in the trial, whatever the
verdict, they would hardly martyrize the man lest at a later date further
question as to his guilt should arise and all Europe be set bubbling anew
upon that much-discussed topic--French justice.

Mordaunt was of the same opinion; but, as he watched the young officer
throughout the whole of the day's proceedings, he came to the conclusion
that the verdict was everything in this man's estimation and the sentence
less than nothing. If he were condemned to be blown from his own gun, he
would face the ordeal unshrinking, almost with indifference. Deprived of
honour, what else was there in life?

So when the end came at last, and the inevitable verdict was pronounced,
Mordaunt shut his note-book with a feeling that there was no more to be
recorded.

As a matter of fact the sentence was not pronounced at the time, and only
transpired two days later, when it was officially made public--expulsion
from the army and incarceration in a French fortress for ten years.

"That, of course, will be commuted," said one who knew the probabilities
of the case to Mordaunt when the sentence was made known. "They will
release him _au secret_ in a few years and banish him from the country on
peril of arrest. They are bound to make an example of him, but they won't
keep it up. The verdict was not unanimous. And, above all, they won't
make a martyr of him now. The other _affaire_ is too recent."

Mordaunt agreed as to the likelihood of this, but he did not find it
particularly consolatory. He had seen the prisoner's face as he was
guarded through the surging, hostile crowd; and he knew that for Bertrand
de Montville the heavens had fallen.

An innocent man had been found guilty, and that was the end. He was
beyond