  In their comment cond-mat/9710285 [Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 5024 (1998)] den
Hartog and van Wees (HW) raise objections against our analysis of the
experimental data presented in cond-mat/9708162 [Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 1547
(1997)]. According to HW, we did not account for the quantum phase incoherence
introduced by the Niobium compounds of the investigated Nb/Au hybrid samples.
Here we show that and why this criticism is not justified. Some difficulties
associated with a precise determination of the coherence lengths are discussed.
It is discussed why these uncertainties do not have a qualitative impact on the
results reported in our paper.
