"Come, let us go to the bottom of this. You have fallen in with a woman
in Switzerland, and you suspect her of being a girl you met years ago in
New Hampshire under circumstances which render her appearance here
nearly an impossibility. As I am not a man of vivid imagination, that
floors me. What makes you think them identical?"

"A startling personal resemblance, age, inflection of voice, manner,
even a certain physical peculiarity--a scar."

"Then what makes you doubt?"

"Everything."

"Well, that's comprehensive, at all events."

"The very fact of her being here. The physician at the asylum said that
that girl's malady was hopeless. Miss Denham has one of the clearest
intellects I ever knew; she is a linguist, an accomplished musician,
and, what is more rare, a girl who has moved a great deal in society,
or, at least, has travelled a great deal, and has not ceased to be an
unaffected, fresh, candid girl."

"An American?"

"Of course; didn't I say so?"

"The other may have been a sister, then, or a cousin," suggested
Flemming. "That would account for the likeness, which possibly you
exaggerate. It was in 1872, wasn't it?"