"Till they prove them guilty."
"Guilty! guilty!" the bomb exploded in earnest now. "How many times in the annals of crime is a man guilty—really guilty? They should search for the cause—and punish that. That is true justice. The instigator, the instigator—he is the true culprit. Inheritances—voilà les vrais coupables. But when are such things investigated? It is ever the innocent who are punished. I know something of that—I do."
"Allons—allons!" cried the table, laughing at the beard's vehemence. "When were you ever under sentence?"
"When I was doing my duty," the beard hurled back with both arms in the air; "when I was doing my three years—I and my comrade; we were convicted—punished—for an act of insubordination we never committed. Without a trial, without a chance of defending ourselves, we were put on two crumbs of bread and a glass of water for two months. And we were innocent—as innocent as babes, I tell you."
The table was as still as death. The beard had proved himself worthy of this compliment; his voice was the voice of drama, and his gestures such as every Frenchman delights in beholding and executing. Every ear was his, now.
"I have no rancor. I am, by nature, what God made me, a peaceable man, but"—here the voice made a wild crescendo—"if I ever meet my colonel—gare à lui! I told him so. I waited two years, two long years, till I was released; then I walked up to him" (the beard rose here, putting his hand to his forehead), "I saluted" (the hand made the salute), "and I said to him, 'Mon colonel, you convicted me, on false evidence, of a crime I never committed. You punished me. It is two years since then. But I have never forgotten. Pray to God we may never meet in civil life, for then yours would end!"
"Allons, allons! A man after all must do his duty. A colonel—he can't go into details!" remonstrated the hostess, with her knife in the air.
"I would stick him, I tell you, as I would a pig—or a Prussian! I live but for that!"
"Monstre!" cried the table in chorus, with a laugh, as it took its wine. And each turned to his neighbor to prove the beard in the wrong.
"Of what crime is the defendant guilty—he who is to be tried to-night?" Charm asked of a silent man, with sweet serious eyes and a rough gray beard, seated next her. Of all the beards at the table, this one alone had been content with listening.