"It is possible, but I confess I do not recollect it," replied David.

"The name was not Poindexter," continued the other, "but the face--
pardon me--I could have taken my oath to."

"Where did this meeting take place?" asked David, smiling.

"In Paris, at ----'s," said the gray-eyed gentleman (mentioning the
name of a well-known French nobleman).

"You are quite certain, of that?"

"Yes. It was but a month since."

"I was never in Paris. For three years I have hardly been out of sight
of London," David answered. "What was your friend's name?"

"It has slipped my memory," he replied. "An Italian name, I fancy. But
he was a man--pardon me--of very striking appearance, and I conversed
with him for more than an hour."

Now it is by no means an uncommon occurrence for two persons to bear a
close resemblance to each other, but (aside from the fact that David
was anything but an ordinary-looking man) this mistake of his new
acquaintance affected him oddly. He involuntarily associated it with
the internal and external transformation which had happened to him, and
said to himself:

"This counterpart of mine was prophetic: he was what I am to be--what I
am." And fantastic though the notion was, he could not rid himself of