tall windows brought the groups below into high relief; the scarlet of
the judges' robes was doubly impressive against this background. The
lawyers, in their flowing black gowns and white ties, gained added
dignity from the marine note behind them. The bluish pallor of the
walls made the accused and the group about him pathetically sombre.
Each one of this little group was in black. The accused himself, a
sharp, shrewd, too keen-eyed man of thirty or so, might have been
following a corpse--so black was his raiment. Even the youth beside
him, a dull, sodden-eyed lad, with an air of being here not on his own
account, but because he had been forced to come, was clad in deepest
mourning. By the side of the culprit sat the one really tragic figure
in all the court--the culprit's wife. She also was in black. In happier
times she must have been a fair, fresh-colored blonde. Now all the
color was gone from her cheek. She was as pale as death, and in her
sweet downcast eyes there were the tell-tale vigils of long nights of
weeping. Beside her sat an elderly man who bent over her, talking,
whispering, commenting as the trial went on.

Every eye in the tribune was fixed on the slim young figure. A passing
glance sufficed, as a rule, for the culprit and his accomplice; but it
was on the wife that all the quick French sympathy, that volubly spoke
itself out, was lavished. The blouses and peasants' caps, the tradesmen
and their wives crowded close about the railing to pass their comment.

"She looks far more guilty than he," muttered a wizened old man next to
us, very crooked on his three-legged stool.

"Yes," warmly added a stout capped peasant, with a basket once on her
arm, now serving as a pedestal to raise the higher above the others her
own curiosity. "Yes--she has her modesty--too--to speak for her--"