'You!--you--Edmund Gray? Oh! No--no. You cannot be Edmund Gray--you yourself!' All her beautiful theory of hypnotic influence vanished. No mesmerism or magnetic influence at all. 'You yourself?' she repeated, 'you--Edmund Gray?' 'Assuredly. Why not? Why should a man not be himself?' 'Oh! I don't understand. The world is going upside down. I took you--took you for another person.' He laughed gently. 'Truly, I am none other than Edmund Gray--always Edmund Gray. My first name I can never change if I wished, because it is my baptismal name. The latter I do not wish to change, because it is my name ancestral.' 'I asked because--because--I fancied a resemblance to another person. Were you ever told that you are much like a certain other person?' 'No; I think not. Resemblances, however, are extremely superficial. No two living creatures are alike. We are alone, each living out his life in the great Cosmos, quite alone--unlike any other living creature. However, I am Edmund Gray, young lady. It isn't often that I receive a visit from a young lady in these Chambers. If you have no other doubt upon that point, will you let me ask you, once more, how I can help you? And will you come in and sit down?' 'Oh! it is wonderful,' she cried--'wonderful! most wonderful!' Again she controlled herself. 'Are you,' she asked again, 'the same Mr. Edmund Gray who wrote the letter to the _Times_ the other day?' 'Certainly. There is no other person, I believe, of the name in this Inn. Have you read that letter?' 'Yes--oh, yes.' 'And you have come here to talk to me about that letter?' 'Yes--yes.' She caught at the hint. 'That is why I came--to talk about that letter. I came in the hope of finding the author of that letter at home.' He threw open the door of his sitting-room. 'Will you step in? We can talk quite quietly here. The Inn at this hour on Saturday is almost deserted.' He closed the outer door and followed his visitor into the sitting-room. 'This,' he went on, 'is the quietest place in the whole of London. We have not, in this Square, the stately elms of the old garden, but still we have our little advantages--spacious rooms--quiet always in the evening and on Sundays. A few rackety young men, perhaps; but for one who reads and meditates, no better place in London.--Now, young lady, take the easy-chair and sit down. We will talk. There are very few people who talk to me about my theories. That is because I am old, so that I have lost my friends, and because my views are in advance of the world. No man is so lonely as the man born before his time. He is the prophet, you know, who must be stoned because he prophesies things unintelligible and therefore uncomfortable--even terrifying. I shall be very glad to talk a little with you.--Now, allow me first to open these letters.'