The two young men were seated at either extremity of the low sill of a tall French window, thrown wide open to admit the pleasant spring sunshine, into which they puffed, from capacious pipes, wreaths of thin blue smoke. Their conversation turned upon a crime--or rather a series of crimes--which occasioned, at that particular moment, much excitement in Paris, and which will still be remembered by those persons upon the tablets of whose memory the lapse of a quarter of a century does not act as a spunge. About three years previously, a young man named Gilbert Gaudry, of respectable family, liberal education, and good reputation, had been tried and convicted for the murder of an uncle, by whose death he largely inherited. The accused man was in debt, and his embarrassed circumstances prevented his marrying a woman to whom he was passionately attached; his uncle had recently refused him pecuniary assistance, upon which occasion Gaudry was heard to express himself harshly and angrily. Many other circumstances concurred to throw upon him the odium of the crime; and, altogether, the evidence, although entirely circumstantial, was so strong against him, that, in spite of his powerful appeal and solemn denial, the judge condemned him to death. The sentence had been commuted to the galleys for life. Three years passed, and the real murderer was discovered--a discharged servant of the murdered man, who, at the trial, had given important evidence against Gaudry. The guillotine did its work on the right offender, and Gaudry's sentence was reversed. But three years of slavery and opprobrium, of shame, horror, and gnawing sense of injustice, had wrought terribly upon the misjudged man, inspiring him with a blind and burning thirst of revenge. Almost his first act, on finding himself at liberty, was to stab, in broad daylight, and in the open street, the judge who had condemned him. This time there could be no question of his guilt, and he would inevitably have been condemned to death; but, before his trial, he found means of hanging himself in his cell. This last tragical and shocking incident had occurred but two days previously, and now furnished the embryo jurists with a theme for animated discussion. Without vindicating the wretched murderer and suicide, the young Norman was disposed to find an extenuating circumstance in the unjust punishment he had endured. But his friend scouted such leniency, and, taking up high ground, maintained that no criminal was baser than he who, the victim of judicial error, revenged himself upon the magistrate who had decided according to the best of his judgment and conscience, but who, sharing the liability to err of every human judge, was misled by deceitful appearances or perjured witnesses.