“No—no!”
“Oh, that’s really curious! Just search your memory—one of your friends—a friend of a rather special kind—however—”
I caught him smartly by the arm:
“You lie! You lie! No, you’re not the man you say you are—it’s not true.”
“Then why are you thinking of that man rather than another?” he asked, with a laugh.
Oh, that laugh! That bright and clear young laugh, whose amusing irony had so often contributed to my diversion! I shivered. Could it be?
“No, no,” I protested, with a sort of terror. “It cannot be.”
“It can’t be I, because I’m dead, eh?” he retorted. “And because you don’t believe in ghosts.” He laughed again. “Am I the sort of man who dies? Do you think I would die like that, shot in the back by a girl? Really, you misjudge me! As though I would ever consent to such a death as that!”
“So it is you!” I stammered, still incredulous and yet greatly excited. “So it is you! I can’t manage to recognize you.”
“In that case,” he said, gaily, “I am quite easy. If the only man to whom I have shown myself in my real aspect fails to know me to-day, then everybody who will see me henceforth as I am to-day is bound not to know me either, when he sees me in my real aspect—if, indeed, I have a real aspect—”