With one savage jerk, Mark whipped the cover from another stand. A stand on which stood a mirror. A mirror whose surface seemed to ripple in the fading light. A circular mirror, full three feet in diameter. A mirror with a garishly ornate frame. His hands trembling with feverish haste, Mark adjusted the picture to reflect in the glass. Already the door was cracking. He snatched Elaine from where she lay. Held her half-conscious body before the mirror. "Open your eyes, Elaine! Open your eyes and look at that girl in the mirror! Concentrate on her, Elaine! _Concentrate!_" His own eyes were fixed on the image of his twentieth century self that Gustav Jerbette had painted. His brain ached with the force of will he was exerting. He felt himself falling through endless miles of space. Falling ... falling ... falling.... "Thank God!" exclaimed Professor Duchard fervently. "You both are safe!" Dazedly, Mark and Elaine looked at each other across the narrow aisle separating their white hospital beds. Across the room, sunlight streamed in an open window, its rays glistening on the snowy linen of a third but empty bed. "What happened?" Mark queried in a bewildered tone. "I was in your laboratory, professor, and Vance rushed in--" "You went through the time mirror, my boy. Back to eighteenth century France. And Vance went with you. Apparently he came too close to the glass in his eagerness to stop you; his eyes must have focussed on one of the other figures from Jerbette's picture, reflected in the gap through the space-time barrier. He fell in a coma at the same instant you did." "But I don't remember anything!" Mark protested. "I was going to go back through time to save Elaine, even if I had to change history to do it. Then Vance came in, and everything went blank--" "Yes," broke in Elaine. "The same thing happened to me. I was sitting in front of the mirror Adrian gave me. Then I saw my ancestor from the painting, and I seemed to be falling--" Professor Duchard nodded. "Of course. Time travel apparently brings with it complete loss of memory--" "But I was insulated against amnesia!" exclaimed Mark. "Only on the trip back, my boy. Not on your return. No doubt you remembered the twentieth century while in the eighteenth. But your return destroyed your memories of Bourbon France." * * * * * The younger man scowled. "It doesn't make sense," he grunted. "I'm beginning to think the whole business is so much imagination. After all, how could I transport Elaine back from 1780 to 1942? Or myself, for that matter--" "Perhaps I have some information which will throw light on the subject," the white-haired scientist interrupted. "Yesterday my old friend, Strong, the historian, was passing through the city. He came here to see me.