me was Marie-Adolphe Guillergues,
and he was accused of malversation in the supply of forage to the
Republican troops. The act of indictment laid to his charge numerous and
serious offences, of which no single one was positively certain. Under
examination, Guillergues denied the majority of the charges and
explained the rest in a light favourable to himself. He spoke in a
cold, precise way, with a marked ability and gave the impression of
being a dangerous man to have business dealings with. He had an answer
for everything. When the judge asked him an embarrassing question, his
face remained unmoved and his voice confident, but his two hands, folded
on his breast, kept twitching in an agony. Gamelin was struck by this
and whispered to the colleague sitting next him, a painter like himself:

"Watch his thumbs!"

The first witness to depose alleged a number of most damaging facts. He
was the mainstay of the prosecution. Those on the other hand who
followed showed themselves well disposed to the prisoner. The Deputy of
the Public Prosecutor spoke strongly, but did not go beyond
generalities. The advocate for the defence adopted a tone of bluff
conviction of his client's innocence that earned the accused a sympathy
he had failed to secure by his own efforts. The sitting was suspended
and the jury assembled in the room set apart for deliberation. There,
after a confused and confusing discussion, they found themselves divided
in two groups about equal in number. On the one side were the
unemotional, the lukewarm, the men of reason, whom no passion could
stir, on the other the kind who let their feelings guide them, who prove
all but inaccessible to argument and only consult their heart. These
always voted guilty. They were the true metal, pure and unadulterated;
their only thought was to save the Republic and they cared not a straw
for anything else. Their attitude made a strong impression on Gamelin
who felt he was of the same kidney himself.

"This Guillergues," he thought to himself, "is a cunning scamp, a
villain who has speculated in the forage supplied to our cavalry. To
acquit him is to let a traitor escape, to be false to the fatherland, to
devote the army to defeat." And in a flash Gamelin could see the Hussars
of the Republic, mounted on stumbling horses, sabred by the enemy's
cavalry.... "But if Guillergues was innocent...?"

Suddenly he remembered Jean Blaise, likewise suspected of bad faith in
the matter of s