of
the man who, in a word, can change to a prisoner the one who enters the
Palais as a passer-by. Behind this inquisitor of the law the prison
stands; the tribunal in its red robes appears; the beams of the scaffold
cast their sinister shadows, and the magistrate's cold chamber already
seems to have the lugubrious humidity of the dungeons where the
condemned await their fate.

Jacques Dantin arrived at the Palais in answer to the Magistrate's
citation, with the apparent alacrity of a man who, regretting a friend
tragically put out of the world, wishes to aid in avenging him. He did
not hesitate a second, and Bernardet, who saw him enter the carriage,
was struck with the seeming eagerness and haste with which he responded
to the Magistrate's order. When M. Ginory was informed that Jacques
Dantin had arrived, he allowed an involuntary "Ah!" to escape him. This
ah! seemed to express the satisfaction of an impatient spectator when
the signal is given which announces that the curtain is about to be
raised. For the Examining Magistrate, the drama in which he was about to
unravel the mystery was to begin. He kept his eyes fixed upon the door,
attributing, correctly, a great importance to the first impression the
comer would make upon him as he entered the room. M. Ginory found that
he was much excited; this was to him a novel thing; but by exercising
his strong will he succeeded in mastering the emotion, and his face and
manner showed no trace of it.

In the open door M. Jacques Dantin appeared. The first view, for the
Magistrate, was favorable. The man was tall, well built; he bowed with
grace and looked straight before him. But at the same time M. Ginory was
struck by the strange resemblance of this haughty face to that image
obtained by means of Bernardet's kodak. It seemed to him that this image
had the same stature, the same form as that man surrounded by the hazy
clouds. Upon a second examination it seemed to the Magistrate that the
face betrayed a restrained violence, a latent brutality. The eyes were
stern, under their bristling brows; the pointed beard, quite thin on the
cheeks, showed the heavy jaws, and under the gray mustache the under lip
protruded like those of certain Spanish cavaliers painted by Velasquez.

"Prognathous," thought M. Ginory, as he noticed this characteristic.
With a gesture he motioned M. Dantin to a chair. The man was there
before the Judge who, with crossed hands, his elbows leaning on his