The appeal was denied.

CHAPTER XIV.

“It is awful!” said Nekhludoff to the lawyer, as they entered the waiting-room.  “In the plainest possible case they cavil at idle forms.  It is awful!”

“The case was spoiled at the trial,” said Fanirin.

“Selenin, too, was against reversal.  It is awful, awful!” Nekhludoff continued to repeat.  “What is to be done now?”

“We will petition the Emperor.  Head it yourself while you are here.  I will prepare the petition.”

At that moment Wolf in his uniform and stars hung on his breast entered the waiting-room and approached Nekhludoff.

“I am sorry, my dear Prince, but the grounds were insufficient,” he said, shrugging his narrow shoulders; and, closing his eyes, he proceeded on his way.

After Wolf came Selenin, who had learned from the Senators that Nekhludoff, his former friend, was present.

“I did not expect to meet you here,” he said, approaching Nekhludoff and smiling with his lips, while his eyes remained sad.

“And I did not know that you were the Attorney General.”

“Associate,” Selenin corrected him.  “But what brought you to the Senate?”

“I came here hoping to find justice, and to save an innocent woman.”

“What woman?”

“The case that has just been decided.”

“Oh, the Maslova case!” said Selenin.  “An entirely groundless appeal.”

“The question is not of the appeal, but of the woman, who is innocent and undergoing punishment.”

Selenin sighed.

“Quite possible, but——­”

“It is not merely possible, but certain.”

“How do you know?”

“I know because I was on the jury.  I know wherein we made the mistake.”

Selenin became thoughtful.

“It should have been declared on the trial,” he said.

“I did so.”

“It should have been made part of the record.  If that had appeared in the appeal——­”

Selenin, who was always busy, and did not mingle in society, had evidently not heard of Nekhludoff’s romance.  Nekhludoff, however, decided not to speak to him of his relations to Maslova.

“But it is evident even now that the verdict was preposterous,” he said.

“The Senate has no right to say so.  If the Senate attempted to interfere with the verdicts of the courts upon its own view of the justness of the verdicts themselves, there would be greater risks of justice being miscarried than established,” he said, recalling the preceding case.  “Besides, the verdicts of juries would lose their significance.”

“I only know one thing, and that is that the woman is entirely innocent, and the last hope of saving her from an undeserved punishment is gone.  The highest judicial institution has affirmed what was absolutely unjust.”

“It has not affirmed because it has not and could not consider the merits of the case,” said Selenin, blinking his eyes.  “You have probably stopped at your aunts,” he added, evidently wishing to change the subject of conversation.  “I learned yesterday that you were in St. Petersburg.  Countess Catherine Ivanovna had invited me and you to be present at the meeting of the English preacher,” said Selenin, smiling only with his lips.