'Certainly,' he smiled—'nothing easier. 'I am Edmund Gray.'
'You!—you—Edmund Gray? Oh! No—no. You cannot be Edmund Gray—you yourself!' All her beautiful theory of hypnotic influence vanished. No mesmerism or magnetic influence at all. 'You yourself?' she repeated, 'you—Edmund Gray?'
'Assuredly. Why not? Why should a man not be himself?'
'Oh! I don't understand. The world is going upside down. I took you—took you for another person.'
He laughed gently. 'Truly, I am none other than Edmund Gray—always Edmund Gray. My first name I can never change if I wished, because it is my baptismal name. The latter I do not wish to change, because it is my name ancestral.'
'I asked because—because—I fancied a resemblance to another person. Were you ever told that you are much like a certain other person?'
'No; I think not. Resemblances, however, are extremely superficial. No two living creatures are alike. We are alone, each living out his life in the great Cosmos, quite alone—unlike any other living creature. However, I am Edmund Gray, young lady. It isn't often that I receive a visit from a young lady in these Chambers. If you have no other doubt upon that point, will you let me ask you, once more, how I can help you? And will you come in and sit down?'
'Oh! it is wonderful,' she cried—'wonderful! most wonderful!' Again she controlled herself. 'Are you,' she asked again, 'the same Mr. Edmund Gray who wrote the letter to the Times the other day?'
'Certainly. There is no other person, I believe, of the name in this Inn. Have you read that letter?'
'Yes—oh, yes.'