light steps approached. Coconnas, curious and incredulous, drew his
poniard, and fearing that if he raised the tapestry Rene would repeat
what he said about the door, he cut a hole in the thick curtain, and
applying his eye to the hole, uttered a cry of astonishment, to which
two women's voices responded.

"What is it?" exclaimed La Mole, nearly dropping the waxen figure, which
Rene caught from his hands.

"Why," replied Coconnas, "the Duchesse de Nevers and Madame Marguerite
are there!"

"There, now, you unbelievers!" replied Rene, with an austere smile; "do
you still doubt the force of sympathy?"

La Mole was petrified on seeing the queen; Coconnas was amazed at
beholding Madame de Nevers. One believed that Rene's sorceries had
evoked the phantom Marguerite; the other, seeing the door half open, by
which the lovely phantoms had entered, gave at once a worldly and
substantial explanation to the mystery.

While La Mole was crossing himself and sighing enough to split a rock,
Coconnas, who had taken time to indulge in philosophical questionings
and to drive away the foul fiend with the aid of that holy water
sprinkler called scepticism, having observed, through the hole in the
curtain, the astonishment shown by Madame de Nevers and Marguerite's
somewhat caustic smile, judged the moment to be decisive, and
understanding that a man may say in behalf of a friend what he cannot
say for himself, instead of going to Madame de Nevers, went straight to
Marguerite, and bending his knee, after the fashion of the great
Artaxerxes as represented in the farces of the day, cried, in a voice to
which the whistling of his wound added a peculiar accent not without
some power:

"Madame, this very moment, at the demand of my friend the Comte de la
Mole, Maitre Rene was evoking your spirit; and to my great astonishment,
your spirit is accompanied with a body most dear to me, and which I
recommend to my friend. Shade of her majesty the Queen of Navarre, will
you desire the body of your companion to come to the other side of the
curtain?"

Marguerite began to laugh, and made a sign to Henriette, who passed to
the other side of the curtain.

"La Mole, my friend," continued Coconnas, "be as eloquent as
Demosthenes, as Cicero, as the Chancellor de l'Hopital! and be assured
that my life will be imperilled if you do not persuade the body of
Madame de Nevers that I am her most devoted, most obedient, and most
faithful servant."

"But"-