d near the
little bookcase, next the only window in the room.

Jacques Dantin soon appeared, led in by two guards in uniform. He was
very pale, but still retained his haughty air and his defiant attitude.
The Magistrate saluted him with a slight movement of the head, and
Dantin bowed, recognizing in Bernardet the man with whom he had walked
and conversed behind Rovere's funeral car.

"Be seated, Dantin," M. Ginory said, "and explain to me, I beg, all you
know about this portrait. You ought to recognize it."

He quickly held the picture before Dantin's eyes, wishing to scrutinize
his face to see what sudden emotion it would display. Seeing the
portrait, Dantin shivered and said in a short tone: "It is a picture
which I gave to Rovere."

"Ah!" said M. Ginory, "you recognize it then?"

"It is my portrait," Jacques Dantin declared. "It was made a long time
ago. Rovere kept it in his salon. How did it come here?"

"Ah!" again said the Magistrate. "Explain that to me!"

M. Ginory seemed to wish to be a little ironical. But Dantin roughly
said:

"M. le Juge, I have nothing to explain to you. I understand nothing, I
know nothing. Or, rather, I know that in your error--an error which you
will bitterly regret some day or other, I am sure--you have arrested me,
shut me up in Mazas; but that which I can assure you of is, that I have
had nothing, do you hear, nothing whatever to do with the murder of my
friend, and I protest with all my powers against your processes."

"I comprehend that!" M. Ginory coldly replied. "Oh! I understand all the
disagreeableness of being shut up within four walls. But then, it is
very simple! In order to go out, one has only to give to the one who has
a right to know the explanations which are asked. Do you still persist
in your system? Do you still insist on keeping, I know not what secret,
which you will not reveal to us?"

"I shall keep it, Monsieur, I have reflected," said Dantin. "Yes, I have
reflected, and in the solitude to which you have forced me I have
examined my conscience." He spoke with firmness, less violently than at
the Palais de Justice, and Bernardet's penetrating little eyes never
left his face; neither did the Magistrate's, nor the Chief's.

"I am persuaded," Dantin continued, "that this miserable mistake cannot
last long, and you will recognize the truth. I shall go out, at least
from here, without having abused a confidence which one has placed in
me and which I intend