"The burglar," pursued Treadwell, "is tried. He is unknown to the local police. He refuses to tell his name. Naturally! He has served time before and has no hankering for a life-sentence under the 'habitual-criminal' act. He is sentenced to twenty years. After a period of incarceration, he escapes, as jail-birds will, and is not apprehended. Some months afterward, Mr. Henry Sevier returns from his vacation and resumes his popular career. He is just now in the public eye--very much so, indeed. Do you seriously believe a claim that the two men are identical will hold water?" Craig had been staring at him from under his shaggy brows. Anger was seething in his brain at the suspicion he felt was lurking behind the other's matter-of-fact logic. "Then you believe I am the victim of hallucination?" he asked, with forced calmness. "Frankly," said Treadwell, "I think for you to allege such a thing openly would, at the very least, make you seem ridiculous. Man, don't you see? You've had a shock--a brain injury. You've been through a long period of mental illness, culminating in a major operation! Don't you realise--" Craig struck his fist upon the table and his teeth snapped together. "Look here, Treadwell," he flamed, "I'm as sane as you are, and you know it!" "Of course, of course," agreed the other, in a mollifying tone. "But why not let the matter rest awhile? Go down for a month to Old Point and build up--" Craig's face turned livid. He got up, and lifted one clenched fist in the air. "Think what you like!" he said, venomously. "Do you suppose I care what any one thinks? I'll show you whether I'm right or not!" His voice rose. "I'll drag him in the mud! Every man and woman in these two states--yes, and in a dozen more!--shall know him for a scoundrel and a robber! He dares to run for Governor, does he? The drunken _poseur_! The damned hypocrite! He shall be jail-bird again and once for all, when I am through with him! He shall lie and rot with a chain and ball on his leg! He--" He stopped. A needled stab of pain had darted, like a bee's sting, through his brow, beneath the bandage, and there flashed to him suddenly the warning of the surgeon, on the day he had left the hospital in Buda-Pesth: "...the tiniest hemorrhage in the affected area and all my surgery could not undo--" He stood still an instant, breathing heavily. Then he caught up his hat and turned to the door. Treadwell was looking at him curiously. The outburst had tended to reinforce the suspicion that had already come to him as to the other's mental condition. "What do you intend to do?" he asked. "I am going to the Penitentiary, the physical record of the prisoner is there. I shall have it when I come back. I presume you would call that evidence?" "The best--if the measurements proved identical with Sevier's. I daresay he would be willing to submit to the test," Treadwell added, thoughtfully. "--And then?"