frightful accusation against you. I cannot believe my eyes or my memory.
I challenge my conscience, and I ask you to reduce this accusation to
nothing."

"And how, Madame?"

"Oh, not by protestations!"

"How can you expect that a man in my position will lower himself to
discuss accusations that rest on an hallucination?"

"Do you believe that I have hallucinations? If you do, call one of your
'confreres' to-morrow in consultation. If he believes as you do, I will
submit; if not, I shall be convinced that I saw clearly, and I shall act
accordingly."

"If you saw clearly, Madame, and I am ready to concede this to you, it
proves that there is some one somewhere who is my double."

"I said this to myself; and it is exactly this idea that made me write to
you. I wished to give you the opportunity of proving that you could not
be this man."

"You will agree that it is difficult for me to admit a discussion on such
an accusation."

"One may find one's self accused by a concourse of fatal circumstances,
and be not less innocent. Witness the unfortunate boy imprisoned for
five months for a crime of which he is not guilty. And I pass from your
innocence as from his, to ask you to prove that the charges against you