pening and
shutting the scissors mechanically. Jo was in the light, and Charley's
eyes again studied him hard.

His memory was industriously feeling its way into the baffling distance.

"What if some one did come-and stay?" he urged quietly.

"You might be recognised without the beard."

"What difference would it make?" Charley's memory was creeping close to
the hidden door. It was feeling-feeling for the latch.

"You know best, M'sieu'."

"But what do you know?" Charley's face now had a strained look, and he
touched his lips with his tongue. "What John Brown knows, M'sieu'."

There flashed across Charley's mind the fatal newspaper he had read on
the day he awakened to memory again in the but on Vadrome Mountain. He
remembered that he had put it in the fire. But Jo might have read it
before it was spread upon the bench-put it there of purpose for him to
read. Yet what reason could Jo have for being silent, for hiding his
secret?

There was silence for a space, in which Charley's eyes were like
unmoving sparks of steel. He did not see Jo's face--it was in a mist--he
was searching, searching, searching. All at once he felt the latch of
the hidden door under his finger; he saw a court-room, a judge and jury,
and hundreds of excited faces, himself standing in the midst. He saw
twelve men file slowly into the room and take their seats-all save one,
who stood still in his place and said: "Not guilty, your Honour!" He
saw the prisoner leave the box and step down a free man. He saw himself
coming out into the staring summer day. He watched the prisoner come to
him and touch his arm, and say: "Thank you, M'sieu'. You have saved my
life." He saw himself turn to this man:

He roused from his trance, he staggered to his feet, the shears rattled
to the floor. Lurching forward, he caught Jo Portugais by the throat,
and said, as he had said outside the court-room years ago:

"Get out of my sight. You're as guilty as hell!"

His grip tightened--tightened on Jo's throat. Jo did not move, though
his face grew black. Then, suddenly, the hands relaxed, a bluish
paleness swept over the face, and Charley fell sidewise to the floor
before Jo could catch him.

All night, alone, the murderer struggled with death over the body of the
lawyer who had saved his life.

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SEIGNEUR GIVES A WARNING

Rosalie had watched a shut door for five days--a door from which, for
months past, had come all the light and glow