My cousin, who is also very incredulous, smiled, and Dr. Parent said to her:  “Would you like me to try and send you to sleep, Madame?” “Yes, certainly.”

She sat down in an easy-chair, and he began to look at her fixedly, so as to fascinate her.  I suddenly felt myself somewhat uncomfortable, with a beating heart and a choking feeling in my throat.  I saw that Madame Sable’s eyes were growing heavy, her mouth twitched and her bosom heaved, and at the end of ten minutes she was asleep.

“Stand behind her,” the doctor said to me, and so I took a seat behind her.  He put a visiting card into her hands, and said to her:  “This is a looking-glass; what do you see in it?” And she replied:  “I see my cousin.”  “What is he doing?” “He is twisting his mustache.”  “And now?” “He is taking a photograph out of his pocket.”  “Whose photograph is it?” “His own.”

That was true, and that photograph had been given me that same evening at the hotel.

“What is his attitude in this portrait?” “He is standing up with his hat in his hand.”

So she saw on that card, on that piece of white pasteboard, as if she had seen it in a looking glass.

The young women were frightened, and exclaimed:  “That is quite enough!  Quite, quite enough!”

But the doctor said to her authoritatively:  “You will get up at eight o’clock to-morrow morning; then you will go and call on your cousin at his hotel and ask him to lend you five thousand francs which your husband demands of you, and which he will ask for when he sets out on his coming journey.”

Then he woke her up.

On returning to my hotel, I thought over this curious seance and I was assailed by doubts, not as to my cousin’s absolute and undoubted good faith, for I had known her as well as if she had been my own sister ever since she was a child, but as to a possible trick on the doctor’s part.  Had not he, perhaps, kept a glass hidden in his hand, which he showed to the young woman in her sleep, at the same time as he did the card?  Professional conjurers do things which are just as singular.

So I went home and to bed, and this morning, at about half-past eight, I was awakened by my footman, who said to me:  “Madame Sable has asked to see you immediately, Monsieur,” so I dressed hastily and went to her.

She sat down in some agitation, with her eyes on the floor, and without raising her veil she said to me:  “My dear cousin, I am going to ask a great favor of you.”  “What is it, cousin?” “I do not like to tell you, and yet I must.  I am in absolute want of five thousand francs.”  “What, you?” “Yes, I, or rather my husband, who has asked me to procure them for him.”

I was so stupefied that I stammered out my answers.  I asked myself whether she had not really been making fun of me with Doctor Parent, if it were not merely a very well-acted farce which had been got up beforehand.  On looking at her attentively, however, my doubts disappeared.  She was trembling with grief, so painful was this step to her, and I was sure that her throat was full of sobs.