id the man run to earth, with accent of
violence.

The duel was finished.

M. Ginory began to laugh, or, rather, there was a nervous contraction of
his mouth, and his sanguine face wore a scoffing look, while a
mechanical movement of his massive jaws made him resemble a bulldog
about to bite.

"Then," said he, "the situation is a very simple one and you force me to
come to the end of my task. You understand?"

"Perfectly," said Jacques Dantin, with the impulsive anger of a man who
stumbles over an article which he has left there himself.

"You still refuse to reply?"

"I refuse. I came here as a witness. I have nothing to reproach myself
with, especially as I have nothing to fear. You must do whatever you
choose to do."

"I can," said the Magistrate, "change a citation for appearance to a
citation for retention. I will ask you once more"----

"It is useless," interrupted Dantin. "An assassin. I! What folly!
Rovere's murderer! It seems as if I were dreaming! It is absurd, absurd,
absurd!"

"Prove to me that it is absurd in truth. Do you not wish to reply?"

"I have told you all I know."

"But you have said nothing of what I have demanded of you."

"It is not my secret."

"Yes; there is your system. It is frequent, it is common. It is that of
all the accused."

"Am I already accused?" asked Dantin, ironically.

M. Ginory was silent a moment, then, slowly taking from the drawer of
his desk some paper upon which Dantin could discern no writing this
time, but some figures, engraved in black--he knew not what they
were--the Magistrate held them between his fingers so as to show them.
He swung them to and fro, and the papers rustled like dry leaves. He
seemed to attach great value to these papers, which the registrar looked
at from a corner of his eye, guessing that they were the photographic
proofs which had been taken.

"I beg of you to examine these proofs," said the Magistrate to Dantin.
He held them out to him, and Dantin spread them on the table (there
were four of them), then he put on his eyeglasses in order to see
better. "What is that?" he asked.

"Look carefully," replied the Magistrate. Dantin bent over the proofs,
examined them one by one, divined, rather than saw, in the picture which
was a little hazy, the portrait of a man; and upon close examination
began to see in the spectre a vague resemblance.

"Do you not see that this picture bears a resemblance to you?"

This time Dantin seemed