Both men turned at the sound of the door opening behind them. A young woman, tall, dark, strikingly handsome, stood timidly upon the threshold. It was the woman of the photograph. “Doctor--Doctor Breidenbach?” she faltered, as though disconcerted by an unexpected meeting with strangers. Vincent stared at her, held in a suspense of the faculties where he seemed not to breathe. At last he found his voice. “_Hélène!_” he cried. “Hélène! It _is_ you!” He sprang to her, clutched her arm. “What are you doing here?” With a frightened gesture of repulsion, the young woman disengaged herself from his grasp. She drew herself up, looked at him without the faintest recognition in her eyes. “_Ich spreche nicht französisch, mein Herr!_” she said in a tone of cold rebuff. “Hélène!” She shrank back in obviously offended dignity, and, without another word, haughtily left the room. Vincent reeled away from the closed door, his hands to his head. “My God!” he groaned. “Am I going mad?” Then, ceding to a sudden impulse, he eluded his friend’s restraining grasp, dashed to the door. “Hélène!” He found himself confronted by the smiling figure of Doctor Breidenbach. “Pardon the unintended intrusion, messieurs!” he said, good-humouredly apologetic and taking no notice of Vincent’s excited appearance. “My ward, Fräulein Rosenhagen, was unaware that I had guests.--I merely wished to reassure myself that you require nothing before I go into the town. Is there anything you desire of me?” “Nothing, thank you,” interposed Chassaigne, quickly, before Vincent could speak. “_A tantôt_, then!” He nodded amicably and went out. “We ought to have questioned him!” cried Vincent, resentful of the missed opportunity. “We ought to do nothing of the kind, my dear Vincent,” replied Chassaigne. “Calm yourself. Be sensible. What question could we possibly ask that would not be ridiculous? You may be utterly wrong.” “_It is she!_ I swear it!” asserted the young man, vehemently. “Do you think I cannot recognize a woman I have known all my life?” He commenced to pace up and down the room in wild agitation. His friend contemplated him with a gaze of genuine solicitude. “You may be mistaken for all that,” he said, gently. “Doubles, although rare, exist----” Vincent stared at him in exasperation. “My fiancée had three little moles just above her right wrist--I looked for those three moles when I held that woman’s arm just now--_and I found them_! Are doubles so exactly reproduced as that?” he asked, furiously. “It sounds incredible, certainly,” agreed Chassaigne. “But her attitude----” “I know,” said Vincent, recommencing his pacing up and down the room. “She looked at me like a complete stranger. But,” he ground his teeth in jealous rage, “if she has consented to live with that man--she might have pretended--to hide her shame----”