kind of person, yes.

But not Elaine.

Still Mark stared, mouth agape.

A feeling was growing within him. A strange conviction that he
recognized this other Elaine.

"I've seen her before, some place!" he muttered half-aloud.

And then Elaine was speaking again.

"What is it, Mark? What's happened? Why does that mirror reflect back
another woman?" The girl's voice carried a little quaver of
bewilderment; of fear, almost. Her whole body trembled as if a chill
were running through her.

Her voice jerked Mark from his paralysis. He turned sharply. His eyes
probed into every corner of the moonlit room, seeking vainly for some
clue to account for this impossible phenomenon--

"Mark, I'm afraid!"

Even in the dim light of the little chamber the man could see the color
drain from his sweetheart's face as she spoke.

"I've got the most awful feeling down inside of me, Mark. As if that
woman was in another world, and as if she was pulling me away from you
and into it. My thoughts--they're not mine; they're hers! My mind's
draining out of me. Don't let me go, Mark. Don't let me! I love you,
Mark--"

"Light! That's what we need!" Mark exploded into action. Sprang toward
the wall switch. "Hold on, Elaine. Three hundred watts will drive that
damned ghost away--"

"... I'm falling! I'm falling! Oh, Mark, I love you so! Mark, help me!
_Help!_"

* * * * *

The girl's voice rose in a scream of wild terror. It tore at Mark's
eardrums. Echoed through the stillness of the sleep-bound house like a
banshee's wail.

The man's hand knocked up the switch. Flooded the room with light. Even
as he did so he was whirling. Springing back to Elaine's side. And
barely in time, for her backbone seemed to have turned to water. Her
limp body was slipping to the floor in a nerveless heap, her muscles
slack and unresponding. By a miracle of balance, Mark's hands caught her
in time to break the force of her fall. He lifted her, unresisting, in
his arms. Her ashen lips still were moving in the faintest of whispers--

"_... je t'aime, mon cher, je t'aime...._"

Her voice trailed off. A great sigh shook her. She lay unconscious in
his arms.

Mark's brain was spinning like a top within his skull. He was breathing
hard, and he was trembling, as if he had just run a long way.

"... I love you, my dear, I love you...."

That was what she had said.

_But why had she spoken in French?_

Even as he hesitate