"What could I do?" went on the poor captain when he had recovered some self-control. "I thought of handing in my resignation, and yet, I loved my calling, although my promotion had been slow. I remained thirteen years a simple lieutenant. "Naturally, I appeared a careless officer, without ardor, constantly trying to get away from my daily duties. The truth is that my wife, every time I went out, urged me to return home as soon as possible, complaining that I was leaving her alone. "I wished to give my resignation, although it was a hard prospect for me to leave the army a simple lieutenant without getting the Cross of the Legion of Honor. I did not tell my conjugal difficulties to any one. "Then I was forced to abandon the idea of resigning, because my wife would not agree to such a solution. She was proud of the service I was in. "Our third child had just been born when my squadron was ordered to start for the frontier of Morocco, where the war had just broken out. Suddenly my wife, though still in delicate health, announced that she would go with me, that she would make the campaign." V--THE VERDICT--"NOT GUILTY!" The captain continued the history of his curiously troubled married life up to the time of the outbreak of the present war. When he came to the recital of the tragedy at Compiegne he lost all control of himself. He said that the only thing with which he could reproach himself was having concealed from his military superiors the truth concerning his difficulties with his wife. Colonel Jacquillart, the president of the court martial, asked Captain Herail sharply: "Why did you not use some other method than shooting your wife to end the distressing situation?" "I tried every other means first," replied the captain, "and I must have been mad with fear of disgrace to kill the wife I loved so much." Many military officers testified and gave Captain Herail a splendid character. Colonel Meneville, who had recommended that the captain should not receive the Legion of Honor on account of his disobeying the order to send wives away, said that in every other respect Herail was an excellent officer, brave and competent. Henri Robert, the most noted member of the Paris Bar, defended Captain Herail eloquently. "A judge far more inexorable than any of you," said M. Robert, pointing to the bench, "his mother-in-law, has forgiven him. She writes me lauding him as an ideal man and officer and worthy of his country. His dead wife's sisters and brothers also forgive him freely." The members of the court martial only took fifteen minutes to reach a decision. They returned and rendered unanimously a simple verdict of "Not guilty!" The verdict was received with frantic applause mingled with tears by the audience. (Told in the _New York American_.) HOW THEY KILLED "THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE" _Told by a Soldier Under General Cantore_ I--STORY OF THE ITALIAN ALPINI