He commenced to pace up and down the room in wild agitation. His friend contemplated him with a gaze of genuine solicitude.
“You may be mistaken for all that,” he said, gently. “Doubles, although rare, exist——”
Vincent stared at him in exasperation.
“My fiancée had three little moles just above her right wrist—I looked for those three moles when I held that woman’s arm just now—and I found them! Are doubles so exactly reproduced as that?” he asked, furiously.
“It sounds incredible, certainly,” agreed Chassaigne. “But her attitude——”
“I know,” said Vincent, recommencing his pacing up and down the room. “She looked at me like a complete stranger. But,” he ground his teeth in jealous rage, “if she has consented to live with that man—she might have pretended—to hide her shame——”
“My friend,” said Chassaigne, seriously, “in that young woman was neither shame nor pretence. I observed her closely. She genuinely did not recognize any acquaintance in you. She genuinely did not even know French. She was genuinely resentful of your familiarity. That was no play-acting performance. She was taken by surprise. She had no time to prepare herself for it.”
The young man beat his brow.
“Oh, I am going mad!” he cried. “It was she, I swear it!—and yet—she did not know me! It baffles me.” He stopped for a moment, then looked up with a new idea. “Chassaigne! You are an authority on these things. It is possible—by hypnotism or anything of the sort—to change a personality completely—so that they forget everything—start afresh?”