ying to burst the tube with its spurting red
jet.

The doctor put his mouth close to Coquenil's ear and whispered: "It's the
shock showing now, the shock that he held back after the body."

Then he leaned over Groener's shoulder and asked kindly: "Do you feel your
heart beating fast, my friend?"

"No," murmured the prisoner, "my--my heart is beating as usual."

"You will certainly recognize the next picture," pursued the judge. "It
shows a woman and a little girl! There! Do you know these faces, Groener?"

As he spoke there appeared the fake photograph that Coquenil had found in
Brussels, Alice at the age of twelve with the smooth young widow.

The prisoner shook his head. "I don't know them--I never saw them."

"Groener," warned the magistrate, "there is no use keeping up this denial,
you have betrayed yourself already."

"No," cried the prisoner with a supreme rally of his will power, "I have
betrayed nothing--nothing," and, once more, while the doctor marveled, his
pulse steadied and strengthened and grew normal.

"What a man!" muttered Coquenil.

"We know the facts," went on Hauteville sternly, "we know why you killed
Martinez and why you disguised yourself as a wood carver."

The prisoner's face lighted with a mocking smile. "If you know all that,
why waste time questioning me?"

"You're a good actor, sir, but we shall strip off your mask and quiet your
impudence. Look at the girl in this _false_ picture which you had cunningly
made in Brussels. Look at her! Who is she? There is the key to the mystery!
There is the reason for your killing Martinez! _He knew the truth about
this girl_."

Now the prisoner's pulse was running wild, faster and faster, but with no
more violent spurtings and leapings; the red column throbbed swiftly and
faintly at the bottom of the tube as if the heart were weakening.

"A hundred and sixty to the minute," whispered Duprat to the magistrate.
"It is dangerous to go on."

Hauteville shrugged his shoulders.

"Martinez knew the truth," he went on, "Martinez held your secret. How had
Martinez come upon it? Who was Martinez? A billiard player, a shallow
fellow, vain of his conquests over silly women. The last man in Paris, one
would say, to interfere with your high purposes or penetrate the barriers
of wealth and power that surrounded you."

"You--you flatter me! What am I, pray, a marquis or a duke?" chaffed the
other, but the trembling dial belied his gayety, and even from