"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.