aightway, after the precious nine-second clew of the word test, he had
sent Papa Tignol off for it posthaste, during the supper intermission. If
the mere word "Charity Bazaar" had struck this man dumb with fear what
would the thing itself do, the revolting, ghastly thing?

That was the question now, what would this hideous moving picture do to a
fire-fearing assassin already on the verge of collapse? Would it break the
last resistance of his overwrought nerves or would he still hold out?

Silently, intently the three men waited, bending over the dial as the test
proceeded, as the fiends of torture and death swept past in lurid triumph.

The picture machine whirled on with droning buzz, the accused sat still,
eyes on the sheet, the red column pulsed steadily, up and down, up and
down, now a little higher, now a little quicker, but--for a minute, for two
minutes--nothing decisive happened, nothing that they had hoped for; yet
Coquenil felt, he knew that something was going to happen, he _knew_ it by
the agonized tension of the room, by the atmosphere of _pain_ about them.
If Groener had not spoken, he himself, in the poignancy of his own
distress, must have cried out or stamped on the floor or broken something,
just to end the silence.

Then, suddenly, the tension snapped, the prisoner sprang to his feet and,
tearing his arm from the leather sleeve, he faced his tormentors
desperately, eyes blazing, features convulsed:

"No, no, no!" he shrieked. "You dogs! You cowards!"

"Lights up," ordered Hauteville. Then to the guard: "Put the handcuffs on
him."

[Illustration: "'No, no, no!' he shrieked. 'You dogs! You cowards!'"]

But the prisoner would not be silenced. "What does all this prove?" he
screamed in rage. "Nothing! Nothing! You make me look at disgusting,
abominable pictures and--why _shouldn't_ my heart beat? Anybody's heart
would beat--if he had a heart."

The judge paid no attention to this outburst, but went on in a tone as keen
and cold as a knife: "Before you go to your cell, Groener, you shall hear
what we charge against you. Your wife perished in the Charity Bazaar fire.
She was a very rich woman, probably an American, who had been married
before and who had a daughter by her previous marriage. That daughter is
the girl you call Alice. Her true name is Mary. She was in the fire with
her mother and was rescued by Martinez, but the shock of seeing her mother
burned to death _and, perhaps, the shock of see