Dreyfus was thereafter "pardoned" and released. That special plot of the anti-Republican clerico-military syndicate of Father du Lac, to use Clemenceau's phraseology, had after all miscarried. As the result of incredible efforts Dreyfus was at last a free man. The world could judge of the character of his accusers and of his champions. It did judge, and that verdict has never been revised. A gross injustice had been partly remedied but could never be fully obliterated. That Dreyfus was innocent the world at large had no doubt. Yet, strange to say, there are still men, who certainly had no feeling against Dreyfus but quite the contrary, who were not convinced. I have heard this view expressed from several quarters, but the opinions of two personal friends of the most different character and career made a considerable impression upon me at the time. The first was my friend, the late George Henty, well known as a special correspondent and author of exceedingly successful books for boys. Henty was a thorough-going Tory, but he had no doubt that Dreyfus was a terribly ill-used man and the victim of a foul plot--until he went over to France to watch the re-trial by court martial at Rennes. He returned in quite a different frame of mind. He knew I was entirely favourable to Dreyfus, as he himself had been when he crossed the Channel. Meeting him by accident, I asked him his opinion: "All I can tell you, Hyndman, is that I watched the man carefully throughout and he made a very bad impression upon me indeed. The longer I looked at him the worse I felt about him. I don't deny for a moment that his first trial was abominably conducted and that he was entitled to fair play. I daresay I may be all wrong, the weight of the evidence might have overborne me as a juryman. But, as it was, I felt that if I myself had been one of the jury I should have given a verdict against him. The man looked and spoke like a spy, and if he isn't a spy," Henty went on in his impulsive way, "I'll be damned if he oughtn't to be one." That, of course, is simply the statement of an impressionable Englishman, who, however, understood what was going on.