All this time I stared hard at the manager. In reality I was puzzling out the mystery, and not paying any attention to the man before me. He, however, grew weary under my regard, and moved uneasily. "Mr. Briarfield is now in his room, monsieur. Shall I take to him your card?" "If you please," I answered mechanically, and handed it to him. In a few moments a waiter came with a message, stating that Mr. Briarfield would be glad to see me. I followed the man, in a state of the utmost bewilderment, and found myself in the presence of Felix before I knew what to say or do. He was so like Francis, whom I thought was lying dead at the Fen Inn, so like the man who passed as Olivia's lover, that for the moment I could do nothing but stare at him. Yet he could be neither of the two, for one was dead and the other I had left behind at Marshminster. "How are you, Denham?" he said, somewhat surprised at my strange conduct. "And why do you stare so steadily at me?" "Are you Felix Briarfield?" I gasped out. "As you see," he answered, raising his eyebrows; "surely you know me well enough to dispense with so foolish a question." "And your brother?" "He is at Marshminster, I believe, with Miss Bellin, to whom he is engaged. Why do you ask so strange a question?" I sat down on the sofa, and buried my face in my hands. Either I was out of my mind or the victim of some horrible hallucination. I certainly had met Francis at the inn, and beheld him dead under its roof. As surely had I seen the man I believed to be Felix at Marshminster. Yet here in Paris I beheld an individual who was neither the dead friend nor the living lover, and he called himself Felix Briarfield. "I must be mad! I must be mad!" was all I could say for the moment. "What is the matter, Denham?" asked Briarfield, touching my shoulder. "Are you ill?" For answer I seized first one hand and then the other. On neither appeared the least scratch. Yet the man whom I believed to be Francis had a ragged wound on the right hand. My theory of a trance vanished into thin air at this proof that the men were distinct. Astounded by my action, Felix drew back in some alarm. "How strangely you act, Denham," he said uneasily. "Is there anything wrong?" "Do you think I am mad?" I asked irritably. "Your action just now was scarcely the act of a sane person. Why did you examine my hands?" "To see if they were cut in any way." He turned the palms of his hands toward me, and shook his head with a slight laugh. "You see," he said, smiling, "they are absolutely free from cut or wound. Why do you expect them to be marred?" I made no reply, but passed my hand across my brow. The situation in which I found myself was so strange and embarrassing that I did not know how to proceed. In the presence of facts I could not but admit that my story would sound but a wild invention.