The florid gentleman (still privately believing it to be all "humbug") was delighted to make himself of any use. "I congratulate you, sir," he said, with his easy humor, as he passed the visitor who had become possessed of his card. "Number Fourteen seems to be a luckier number in your keeping than it was in mine."
As he spoke, he took Doctor Lagarde's disengaged hand. The instant they touched each other the sleeper started. His voice rose; his face flushed. "You are the man!" he exclaimed. "I see you plainly now!"
"What am I doing?"
"You are standing opposite to the gentleman here who is holding my other hand; and (as I have said already) you have met to fight a duel."
The unbeliever cast a shrewd look at his companion in the consultation.
"Considering that you and I are total strangers, sir," he said, "don't you think the Doctor had better introduce us, before he goes any further? We have got to fighting a duel already, and we may as well know who we are, before the pistols go off." He turned to Doctor Lagarde. "Dramatic situations don't amuse me out of the theater," he resumed. "Let me put you to a very commonplace test. I want to be introduced to this gentleman. Has he told you his name?"
"No."
"Of course, you know it, without being told?"
"Certainly. I have only to look into your own knowledge of yourselves, while I am in this trance, and while you have got my hands, to know both your names as well as you do."
"Introduce us, then! " retorted the jesting gentleman. "And take my name first."
"Mr. Percy Linwood," replied the Doctor; "I have the honor of presenting you to Captain Bervie, of the Artillery."
With one accord, the gentlemen both dropped Doctor Lagarde's hands, and looked at each other in blank amazement.
"Of course he has discovered our names somehow!" said Mr. Percy Linwood, explaining the mystery to his own perfect satisfaction in that way.
Captain Bervie had not forgotten what Madame Lagarde had said to him, when he too had suspected a trick. He now repeated it (quite ineffectually) for Mr. Linwood's benefit. "If you don't feel the force of that argument as I feel it," he added, "perhaps, as a favor to me, sir, you will not object to our each taking the Doctor's hand again, and hearing what more he can tell us while he remains in the state of trance?"
"With the greatest pleasure!" answered good-humored Mr. Linwood. "Our friend is beginning to amuse me; I am as anxious as you are to know what he is going to see next."
Captain Bervie put the next question.
"You have seen us ready to fight a duel--can you tell us the result?"
"I can tell you nothing more than I have told you already. The figures of the duelists have faded away, like the other figures I saw before them. What I see now looks like the winding gravel-path of a garden. A man and a woman are walking toward me. The man stops, and places a ring on the woman's finger, and kisses her."
Captain Bervie opened his lips to continue his inquiries--turned pale--and checked himself. Mr. Linwood put the next question.
"Who is the happy man?" he asked.
"You are the happy man," was the instantaneous reply.
"Who is the woman?" cried Captain Bervie, before Mr. Linwood could speak again.
"The same woman whom I saw before; dressed in the same color, in pale blue."
Captain Bervie positively insisted on receiving clearer information than this. "Surely you can see something of her personal appearance?" he said.
"I can see that she has long dark-brown hair, falling below her waist. I can see that she has lovely dark-brown eyes. She has the look of a sensitive nervous person. She is quite young. I can see no more."
"Look again at the man who is putting the ring on her finger," said the Captain. "Are you sure that the face you see is the face of Mr. Percy Linwood?"
"I am absolutely sure."
Captain Bervie rose from his chair.
"Thank you, madam," he said to the Doctor's mother. "I have heard enough."
He walked to the door. Mr. Percy Linwood dropped Doctor Lagarde's hand, and appealed to the retiring Captain with a broad stare of astonishment.
"You don't really believe this?" he said.
"I only say I have heard enough," Captain Bervie answered.
Mr. Linwood could hardly fail to see that any further attempt to treat the matter lightly might lead to undesirable results.
"It is difficult to speak seriously of this kind of exhibition," he resumed quietly. "But I suppose I may mention a mere matter of fact, without meaning or giving offense. The description of the lady, I can positively declare, does not apply in any single particular to any one whom I know."
Captain Bervie turned round at the door. His patience was in some danger of failing him. Mr. Linwood's unruffled composure, assisted in its influence by the presence of Madame Lagarde, reminded him of the claims of politeness. He restrained the rash words as they rose to his lips. "You may make new acquaintances, sir," was all that he said. "You have the future before you."
Upon that, he went out. Percy Linwood waited a little, reflecting on the Captain's conduct.
Had Doctor Lagarde's description of the lady accidentally answered the description of a living lady whom Captain Bervie knew? Was he by any chance in love with her? and had the Doctor innocently reminded him that his love was not returned? Assuming this to be likely, was it really possible that he believed in prophetic revelations offered to him under the fantastic influence of a trance? Could any man in the possession of his senses go to those lengths? The Captain's conduct was simply incomprehensible.
Pondering these questions, Percy decided on returning to his place by the Doctor's chair. "Of one thing I am certain, at any rate," he thought to himself. "I'll see the whole imposture out before I leave the house!"
He took Doctor Lagarde's hand. "Now, then! what is the next discovery?" he asked.
The sleeper seemed to find some difficulty in answering the question.
"I indistinctly see the man and the woman again," he said.