He ceased, and I observed that he fastened his eyes upon my hands. Then, after looking for some little time with attention at my face, he struck his forehead and cried, ‘What a fool am I not earlier to have thought of it! An instant, madame. I will go and bring you your memory.’ He departed, and in a few minutes returned, holding a large oval handglass. ‘Now,’ he exclaimed, smiling, ‘look at yourself, madame, and, though I am not a doctor, I pronounce that all will return to you.’ He elevated the glass and I looked at myself. But what did I see? Oh, reader, turn back to the description, in the opening pages of this story, of the lady seated at the head of the tea-table in the parlour of the house past the avenue of chestnuts; turn to it, and compare that face with what I saw reflected in the mirror held before me by the young Frenchman. The hair was snow-white; one eyebrow was snow-white; but the other eyebrow was concealed by a wide strip of white sticking-plaister. There were several such strips, which intersected each other upon the right brow, and one of them extended to the bridge of the nose, entirely sheathing the bone or cartilage, and leaving but little more than the extremity of the nose and the nostrils visible. The dark eyes were sunk and dim. The cheeks were hollow, and the complexion a dingy sallow, and as much of the brow as was left exposed and parts of the flesh of the face were covered with thin lines, as though traced by the point of a needle. This was the face that looked out upon me from that hand-mirror. I stared at it, but I did not know it. Yet it did not terrify me, because I was unable to remember my former face, and therefore no shock of discovery attended my inspection. No, the sight of that dreadful face, with its milk-white hair and plaistered brow, with here and there a stain of dry blood upon the plaister, did not terrify me. I gazed as though beholding something that was not myself, and still I knew that the face that confronted me was my own face, and _this_ it was, and not the face that deepened the indeterminable feeling of horror by quickening within me the awful silent question, ‘_Who am I?_’ ‘Now, madame,’ exclaimed Alphonse, ‘look steadily, and you will be able to pronounce your name and to remember.’ I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again he had removed the glass. I tried to speak, but though he inclined his head he seemed unable to hear me. On this he put his finger to his lips, and, after viewing me a while with an expression of pity and astonishment, he went softly out.