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?”