Kesserich seemed about to rush forward again, then controlled himself. "You've got everything wrong. You hardly deserve to be told, but under the circumstances I have no choice. Mary is not my daughter. To be precise, she has no father at all. Do you remember the work that Jacques Loeb did with sea urchins?" Jack frowned angrily. "You mean what we were talking about last night?" "Exactly. Loeb was able to cause the egg of a sea urchin to develop normally without union with a male germ cell. I have done the same tiding with a human being. This girl is Mary Alice Pope. She has exactly the same heredity. She has had exactly the same life, so far as it could be reconstructed. She's heard and read the same things at exactly the same times. There have been the old newspapers, the books, even the old recorded radio programs. Hani and Hilda have had their daily instructions, to the letter. She's retraced the same time-trail." "Rot!" Jack interrupted. "I don't for a moment believe what you say about her birth. She's Mary's daughter--or the daughter of your wife on the mainland. And as for retracing the same time-trail, that's senile self-delusion. Mary Alice Pope had a normal life. This girl has been brought up in cruel imprisonment by two insane, vindictive old women. In your own frustrated desire, you've pretended to yourself that you've recreated the girl you lost. You haven't. You couldn't. Nobody could--the great Martin Kesserich or anyone else!" Kesserich, his features working, shifted his point of attack. "Who are you, Mary?" "Don't answer him," Jack said. "He's trying to confuse you." "Who are you?" Kesserich insisted. "Mary Alice Pope," she said rapidly in a breathy whisper before Jack could speak again. "And when were you born?" Kesserich pressed on. "You've been tricked all your life about that," Jack warned. But already the girl was saying, "In 1916." "And who am I then?" Kesserich demanded eagerly. "Who am I?" * * * * * The girl swayed. She brushed her head with her hand. "It's so strange," she said, with a dreamy, almost laughing throb in her voice that turned Jack's heart cold. "I'm sure I've never seen you before in my life, and yet it's as if I'd known you forever. As if you were closer to me than--" "Stop it!" Jack shouted at Kesserich. "Mary loves me. She loves me because I've shown her the lie her life has been, and because she's coming away with me now. Aren't you, Mary?" He swung her around so that her blank face was inches from his own. "It's me you love, isn't it, Mary?" She blinked doubtfully. At that moment Kesserich charged at them, went sprawling as Jack's fist shot out. Jack swept up Mary and ran with her across the lawn. Behind him he heard an agonized cry--Kesserich's--and cruel, mounting laughter from Hani and Hilda.