The Rocks of Valpré

turned his head and listened. There was a suspicion of contempt on his face, drawn though it was. What did they care for justice? It was only the i

ted to his guilt, and only he himself and one other knew him to be the victim of a deliberate plot devised to compass his destruction. He was too h

o the mire to rise therefrom no more for ever. He had climbed so high; almost his feet had reached the summit. He had completed his invention, and it had surpassed even his most sanguine hopes of success. At four-and-twenty he had bee

as to place the French artillery at the head of the list, the child of his brain, his own peculiar treasure,

tial judges-had been in a position at that time to betray the secret, for none but himself had then

contestable. Inch by inch he had been forced down from the heights that he had so gallantly scaled, and now he was on the brink of the precipic

f his court-martial he confronted destiny-that destiny that he had once so gaily dared-with closed lips and eyes that revealed neither misery nor despair, only the indomitable pride of his race. Do what they would to him, they would never quench that while life remained. The worst indignity that man could

young face, with its faint, patrician smile. The sketch was little more than outline, a few bold strokes; but the people in England who saw it a couple of d

t. 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 hi

conclusion that the verdict was everything in this man's estimation and the sentence less than nothing. If he were condemned to be bl

rdict was pronounced, Mordaunt shut his note-book w

ly transpired two days later, when it was officially made public-expuls

ll 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 t

consolatory. He had seen the prisoner's face as he was guarded through the surging

ce now that justice had failed him. They had pushed him over the edge of the precipice-this man who had dar

d still, met those of the Englishman, with his level, unfaltering scrutiny. No word or outward sign passed between them. They were utter strangers; it was unlikely that they would ever meet

knowledge that one man-an Englishman-believed in him, whi

ze that even a stranger's faith may make a supreme d