This completed the evidence, at the conclusion of which, and of some remarks by the Coroner, the jury, after a brief consultation among themselves, brought in a verdict that the deceased died from a gunshot wound deliberately inflicted by the prisoner Louis Victor Cabanis, in a fit of revengeful passion; which verdict amounting to one of wilful murder, the prisoner was forthwith, on the Coroner’s warrant, committed to the County gaol, there to await his examination before the magistrates on the capital charge. The jury further—being local men—added a rider to their verdict respectfully commiserating Sir Calvin on the very unpleasant business which had chosen to select his grounds for its enactment; and with that the proceedings terminated.
CHAPTER X.
AFTERWARDS
The inquest was over, the provisional verdict delivered, and all that remained for the time being was to put the poor subject of it straightway to rest under the leafless trees in Leighway churchyard. It was done quietly and decently the morning after the inquiry, with some of her fellow-servants attending, and Miss Kennett to represent the family; and so was another blossom untimely fallen, and another moral—a somewhat ghastly one now—furnished for the reproof of the too hilarious Christian.
Audrey, coming back from the sad little ceremony, met Le Sage walking by himself in the grounds. The Baron looked serious and, she thought, dejected, and her young heart warmed to his grief. She went up to him, and, putting her hands on his sleeve, “I am so sorry,” she said, “so very, very sorry.”
He smiled at her kindly, then took her hand and drew it under his arm.
“Let us walk a little way, and talk,” he said; and they strolled on together. “Poor Louis!” he sighed.
“It is not true, is it, Baron?”
“I don’t think it is, my dear. But the difficulty is to prove that it isn’t.”
“How can it be done?”
“At the expense only, I am afraid, of finding the real criminal.”