s not surprised at the sad and furrowed brows of the
officers as they came out from their deliberations. They appeared
discontented with their recent vote, and yet at the same time showed
the serenity of a tranquil countenance. They were soldiers who had just
fulfilled their full duty, suppressing every purely masculine instinct.
The one deputed to read the sentence swelled his voice with a
fictitious energy.... "_Death!_..." After a long enumeration of crimes
Freya was condemned to be shot:--she had given information to the enemy
that represented the loss of thousands of men and boats, torpedoed
because of her reports, on which had perished defenseless families.

The spy nodded her head upon listening to her own acts, for the first
time appreciating their enormity and recognizing the justice of their
tremendous punishment. But at the same time she was relying upon a
good-natured reprieve in exchange for all which she had revealed, upon
a gallant clemency ... because she was she.

As the fatal word sounded, she uttered a cry, became ashy pale, and
leaned upon the lawyer for support.

"I do not want to die!... I ought not to die!... I am innocent."

She continued shrieking her innocence, without giving any other proof
of it than the desperate instinct of self-preservation. With the
credulity of one who wishes to save herself, she accepted all the
problematical consolations of her defender. There remained the last
recourse of appealing to the mercy of the President of the Republic:
perhaps he might pardon her.... And she signed this appeal with sudden
hope.

The lawyer managed to delay the fulfillment of the sentence for two
months, visiting many of his colleagues who were political personages.
The desire of saving the life of his client was tormenting him as an
obsession. He had devoted all his activity and his personal influence
to this affair.

"In love!... In love, as you were!" said, with scornful accent, the
voice of Ferragut's prudent counselor.

The periodicals were protesting against this delay in the execution of
the sentence. The name of Freya Talberg was beginning to be heard in
conversation as an argument against the weakness of the government. The
women were the most implacable.

One day, in the Palace of Justice, the _maitre_ Became convinced of
this general animosity that was pushing the defendant toward the day of
execution. The woman who had charge of the gowns, a verbose old wife,
on a familia