The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-01-17
BERNARDIN'S CRIME.
CHAPTER 1.

They were all three seated in the pris- oners' dock of the Court of Assizes. The husband-Jean Morel-was brutal in ap- pearance !: His eyes were black, and fixed with the concentrated gaze which thought never enlightens his brows, dark and heavily marked, stood forth prominently on his white face. The wife Micheline-a blonde of an insipid palor was a kind of PArisian grisette. Her thin lips, in opening, displayed her deli cate little teeth, which were sharp and white. She was dressed simply but CO., quettishly. And the court of Assizes, DO less than the opera, is place where one may be seen. Then they spoke so much of Michelne Morel in the papers the Rueil crime, indeed, greatly interested the public.
 The third of the accused, Benardin Morel, was the brother of Jean, the broth er-in-law of Micheline. In the great drama which the jury was just developing, the unhappy Bernardin was the person to be sacrificed He played utility" part, as they say in stage parlance, and the public had of him very inferior estima- tion. Jean and Micaeline impressed the crowd quite otherwise. A jealous hus- band who murders his wife's lover with an iron bar and throws his body into the river, is very interesting assassin, es- pecially since he had taken his precau- tions so we'll. Is it the fault of this man if the body of his victim has exposed his crime to all the world?
 The wife, MIcheline. too-they find her interesting. Has she not aided her hus- band to kill her own lover? And then, the veracious reporters told such curious stories! On the very evening of the crime the three had dined together at Pere Virgile's restaurant, and on that oc- caslon she seemed particularly gay she had slipped her champagne and cracked many jokes. She was quite a heroine. Some very sentimental women even pos sessed the portrait of Micheline leaning chastely on her husbands shoulder. From the restaurant they repaired to the Care de rOuest, where was committed the now famous crime.
 Every one awaited the verdict to be brought in by the jury locked up there behind that menacing door. They studied the emotions painted on the dis torted visage of Jean, on the pale cheeks of Micheline; but they did not deisn to think of Bernardin. Ia fact, what was he? A vulgar accomplice, actuated only by fraternal love. He had not the priv ilege O being a suburban Othello, or a Desdemona of the back-shop, like the two others. He would be condemned, and it would be no more than he de- served.
 But psychologist might have studied rrafn AL smooth, pinched face seemed strange. The hollow, gray eyes gaze straight be- fore him with certain vacuity. His figure, though spare, was not without ele- gance. His dehcate hands stirred from time to Ii me, shaken by rapid, nervous trembling. Oae thought slumbered at the bottom of the eyes of this disdained Bernardin. What was it But the au- ditory Of the Court of Assizes did not trouble themselves about him, and when the door at the back opened for the jury to enter, when all the people sighed with emotion like the pit at the fifth act of a drama, they looked at no one but the husband and wife. Were they convicted What would be the penalty? Death ? Surely not. The intelligent crowd still hoped for extenuating circumstances. An exile, which would unite in New Gale. donia the couple apparently so well mated, would please them better. Love - refound in crime and strengthened by adultery! A fine family to serve as an example to the natives.
 Alter the verdict of the jury the court pronounced sentence. It sent Jean Moyel to penal servitade, and Micheline to a house of corectionl Unhappy husband, and not less unhappy wife They would be separated forever. Some sympathetic souls were moved, some pretty eyes were dimmed. One fine Parisian lady even said 10 the young man who accompanied her. "I think it is perfectly heart-rend ingP' As to the vulgar Bernardin, they despised him little more than before. He was acquitted, purely and simply. Again tree, this man did not for an instant merit the attention oi this, the most sen- sational public ofthe world.