t 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 moustache." "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 favour 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 h