photograph proclaimed _your_ infamous notoriety in all the shop-windows?"
He dropped back into his chair, and wrung his hands in a frenzy. "Oh, the
public!" he exclaimed; "the horrible public! I can't get away from
them--I can't hide myself, even here. You have had your stare at me, like
the rest," he cried, turning on me fiercely. "I knew it when you passed
me last night."

"I never saw you out of this place," I answered. "As for the portraits of
you, whoever you may be, I know nothing about them. I was far too anxious
and too wretched, to amuse myself by looking into shop-windows before I
came here. You, and your name, are equally strange to me. If you have any
respect for yourself, tell me who you are. Out with the truth, sir! You
know as well as I do that you have gone too far to stop."

I seized him by the hand. I was wrought up by the extraordinary outburst
that had escaped him to the highest pitch of excitement: I was hardly
conscious of what I said or did. At that supreme moment, we enraged, we
maddened each other. His hand closed convulsively on my hand. His eyes
looked wildly into mine.

"Do you read the newspapers?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Have you seen----?"

"I have _not_ seen the name of 'Dubourg'----"

"'My name is not 'Dubourg.'"

"What is it?"

He suddenly stooped over me; and whispered his name in my ear.

In my turn I started, thunderstruck, to my feet.

"Good God!" I cried. "You are the man who was tried for murder last
month, and who was all but hanged, on the false testimony of a clock!"

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

The Perjury of the Clock

WE looked at one another in silence. Both alike, we were obliged to wait
a little and recover ourselves.

I may occupy the interval by answering two questions which will arise in
your minds in this place. How did Dubourg come to be tried for his life?
And what was the connection between this serious matter and the false
testimony of a clock?

The reply to both these inquiries is to be found in the story which I
call the Perjury of the Clock.

In briefly relating this curious incidental narrative (which I take from
a statement of the circumstances placed in my possession) I shall speak
of our new acquaintance at Browndown--and shall continue to speak of him
throughout these pages--by his assumed name. In the first place, it was
the maiden name of his mother, and he had a right to take it if he
pleased. In the second place, the date of our domesti