"What happened to you this afternoon in Winter Street?"
Curtis had retained his composure well up to this point; now he became uneasy again. Quick pallor on his face was succeeded by a flush which crept up to the roots of his hair.
"I've been drinking too much," he said at last. "That and this thing have completely unnerved me. I am afraid I was not myself."
"What did you _think_ you saw?" insisted The Thinking Machine.
"I went into a store for something. I've forgotten what now. I know there was a great crowd of women--they were all about me. There I saw--" He stopped and was silent for a moment. "There I saw," he went on with an effort, "a woman--just a glimpse of her, over the heads of the others in the store--and----"
"And what?" insisted The Thinking Machine. "At the moment I would have sworn it was Marguerite Melrose," was the reply.
"Of course you know you were mistaken?"
"I know it now," said Curtis. "It was a chance resemblance, but the effect on me was awful. I ran out of there shrieking--it seemed to me. Then I found myself here."
"And you don't know what you said or did from that time until the present?" asked the scientist, curiously.
"No, except in a hazy sort of way."