A week intervened between his arrival at Mont-Mer and the day set for the trial. During that time he knew himself to be under the most relentless surveillance. By day and by night his every act was watched. With his food they brought him neither knife nor fork. On the second day of this startling omission he smiled grimly at the attendant. "You can tell the jailer," he said, "that he needn't be worried about me to that extent. You see, I've worn my country's uniform, and that spoils a man for taking the Dutch route."
The stolid-faced attendant looked at him without replying. Kenwick felt a sudden pity for him. "I suppose he thinks I'm likely to get violent and begin smashing up things at any moment," he reflected. For in the jailer's eyes was that thing for which he had been on the watch for almost two months. He pushed away his food almost untasted. When he was left alone again he walked over to the heavily barred window and stood looking down at the court-house garden. Very gently he shook one of the iron rods. "For almost a year," he muttered. "Barred in for almost a year; and the world has no intention of ever letting me forget it."
The date-palms in the grounds below swept the wintry air with long graceful plumes. How helpless they were in the driving force of the wind! And yet they were moored to something, securely rooted. The storm might buffet but would not utterly destroy them. Down the curving path which they bordered he saw a man approaching with a flat leather case under his arm. It was Dayton, the young attorney whom the court had appointed for his defense. Kenwick, who had taken his intellectual measure at their first meeting the day before, had little faith in his legal ability. But he liked him; liked his buoyant, unspoiled personality. And Dayton was undisguisedly elated over this sudden opportunity to try his mettle in so conspicuous a case. It was the chance he had been hoping for during three years of commonplace practice.
As the prisoner heard his step in the upper corridor he turned from the window. Dayton closed the portal behind him and sat down on the edge of the narrow cot. Downstairs he had just held brief parley with the jailer. "Hasn't Kenwick got any family?" he had inquired.