spectacle of yourself. Come, or I shall drag you."

With his eyes still riveted on that strange countenance, David yielded
to the pressure of his friend's hand and they retired to a hallway
whence he could watch the beggar unobserved. His whole frame was
quivering with excitement and he kept murmuring to himself: "It is he.
It is he! I cannot be mistaken! Nature never made his double! But how he
has changed! How old and white he is! It cannot be his ghost, can it? If
it were night I might think so, but it is broad daylight! This man is
living flesh and blood and my hand is not, after all, the hand of a
mur--"

"Hush!" cried Mantel; "you are talking aloud!"

"Yes, I am talking aloud," he answered, "and I mean to talk louder yet!
I want you to hear that I am not a murderer, a murderer! Do you
understand? I am going to rush out into the streets to cry out at the
top of my voice--I am not a murderer!"

Terrified at his violence, Mantel pushed him farther back into the
doorway; but he sprang out again as if his very life depended upon the
sight of the great white face.

"Be quiet!" Mantel cried, seizing his arm with an iron grip.

The pain restored him to his senses. "What did I say?" he asked
anxiously.

"You said, 'I am not a murderer,'" Mantel whispered.

"And it is true! I am not!" he replied, with but little less violence
than before.

"Look at this hand, Mantel! I have not looked at it myself for more than
three years without seeing spots of blood on it! And now it looks as
white as snow to me! See how firm I can hold it! And yet through all
those long and terrible years, it has trembled like a leaf. Tell me, am
I not right? Is it not white and firm?"

"Yes, yes. It is; but hush. You are in danger of being overheard, and if
you are not careful, in a moment more we shall be in the hands of the
police!"

"No matter if I am," he cried, almost beside himself, and rapturously
embracing his friend. "Nothing could give me more pleasure than a trial
for my crime, for my victim would be my witness! He is not dead. He is
out there in the street. Mantel, you don't know what happiness is! You
don't know how sweet it is to be alive! A mountain has been taken from
my shoulders. I no longer have any secret! I will tell you the whole
story of my life, now."

"Not now; but later on, when we are alone. Let us leave this spot and go
to our rooms."

"No, no! Don't stir! We might lose him, and if we did, I could never
pe