behind. "Well, what
do you say? what do you say?"

"I think I am mad, Bouvard," answered Minoret from the steps of the
porte-cochere. "If that woman tells the truth about Ursula,--and none
but Ursula can know the things that sorceress has told me,--I shall say
that _you are right_. I wish I had wings to fly to Nemours this minute
and verify her words. But I shall hire a carriage and start at ten
o'clock to-night. Ah! am I losing my senses?"

"What would you say if you knew of a life-long incurable disease healed
in a moment; if you saw that great magnetizer bring sweat in torrents
from an herpetic patient, or make a paralyzed woman walk?"

"Come and dine, Bouvard; stay with me till nine o'clock. I must find
some decisive, undeniable test!"

"So be it, old comrade," answered the other.

The reconciled enemies dined in the Palais-Royal. After a lively
conversation, which helped Minoret to evade the fever of the ideas which
were ravaging his brain, Bouvard said to him:--

"If you admit in that woman the faculty of annihilating or of traversing
space, if you obtain a certainty that here, in Paris, she sees and hears
what is said and done in Nemours, you must admit all other magnetic
facts; they are not more incredible than these. Ask her for some one
proof which you know will satisfy you--for you might suppose that we
obtained information to deceive you; but we cannot know, for instance,
what will happen at nine o'clock in your goddaughter's bedroom.
Remember, or write down, what the sleeper will see and hear, and then go
home. Your little Ursula, whom I do not know, is not our accomplice,
and if she tells you that she has said and done what you have written
down--lower thy head, proud Hun!"

The two friends returned to the house opposite to the Assumption and
found the somnambulist, who in her waking state did not recognize Doctor
Minoret. The eyes of this woman closed gently before the hand of the
Swedenborgian, which was stretched towards her at a little distance, and
she took the attitude in which Minoret had first seen her. When her hand
and that of the doctor were again joined, he asked her to tell him what
was happening in his house at Nemours at that instant. "What is Ursula
doing?" he said.

"She is undressed; she has just curled her hair; she is kneeling on
her prie-Dieu, before an ivory crucifix fastened to a red velvet
background."

"What is she saying?"

"Her evening prayers; she is commending her