lness as the
prisoner's lower legs were uncovered.

"Ah!" he cried in triumph, "I knew it, I was sure of it! There!" he pointed
to an egg-shaped wound on the right calf, two red semicircles plainly
imprinted in the white flesh. "It's the first time I ever marked a man with
my teeth and--it's a jolly good thing I did."

"How about this, Groener?" questioned the judge. "Do you admit having had a
struggle with Paul Coquenil one night on the street?"

"No."

"What made that mark on your leg?"

"I--I was bitten by a dog."

"It's a wonder you didn't shoot the dog," flashed the detective.

"What do you mean?" retorted the other.

Coquenil bent close, black wrath burning in his deep-set eyes, and spoke
three words that came to him by lightning intuition, three simple words
that, nevertheless, seemed to smite the prisoner with sudden fear: "_Oh,
nothing, Raoul!_"

So evident was the prisoner's emotion that Hauteville turned for an
explanation to the detective, who said something under his breath.

"Very strange! Very important!" reflected the magistrate. Then to the
accused: "In the morning we'll have that wound studied by experts who will
tell us whether it was made by a dog or a man. Now I want you to put on the
things that were in that bag."

For the first time a sense of his humiliation seemed to possess the
prisoner. He clinched his hands fiercely and a wave of uncontrollable anger
swept over him.

"No," he cried hoarsely, "I won't do it, I'll never do it!"

Both the judge and Coquenil gave satisfied nods at this sign of a
breakdown, but they rejoiced too soon, for by a marvelous effort of the
will, the man recovered his self-mastery and calm.

"After all," he corrected himself, "what does it matter? I'll put the
things on," and, with his old impassive air, he went to the table and,
aided by the guard, quickly donned the boots and garments of the wood
carver. He even smiled contemptuously as he did so.

"What a man! What a man!" thought Coquenil, watching him admiringly.

"There!" said the prisoner when the thing was done.

But the judge shook his head. "You've forgotten the beard and the wig.
Suppose you help make up his face," he said to the detective.

M. Paul fell to work zealously at this task and, using an elaborate
collection of paints, powders, and brushes that were in the bag, he
presently had accomplished a startling change in the unresisting
prisoner--he had literally transformed him into th