"What is it, Françoise?" "Does Monsieur want to go up to M. Villenave's rooms?" "Yes, Françoise." "I thought Monsieur was visiting the ladies as usual." "You are wrong, Françoise." "Then Monsieur will be good enough to spare my poor legs going up two flights of stairs and give M. Villenave this letter for him that has just come." "Willingly, Françoise." Françoise gave me the letter, and I took it and went upstairs. I knocked when I reached the door, but there was no answer. I knocked a little louder. Again no answer. I began to feel uncomfortable; the key was in the door, and the presence of that key invariably indicated the presence of M. Villenave in his room. Surely some accident must have happened to him. I knocked a third time, meaning to enter if I was not answered. There was no response, and I entered. M. Villenave was asleep in his arm-chair. The noise I made in entering and, perhaps, the draught that I caused, disturbed some magnetic influences, and M. Villenave uttered a cry, awoke and jumped up. "Ah! pardon me," I exclaimed. "I beg a thousand pardons! I have disturbed you." "Who are you? What is your business?" asked M. Villenave quickly. "Why, upon my word, do you not recognise me?... Alexandre Dumas." "Oh!" said M. Villenave, with a gasp. "Really, monsieur," I said, "I am very sorry. I will withdraw." "No, no; on the contrary, come in," said M. Villenave, as he passed his hand across his forehead; "you will render me a service." I went in. "Take a seat," he said, from customary habit. Eight or ten folios lay tossed about on the floor; I formed a pile of them and sat down on the top. "Yes," continued M. Villenave, "it was a very singular thing.... I fell asleep, the dusk came on and, in the meantime, my fire went out. You awoke me and found me in the dark, so I could not account for the noise inside my room; it was, no doubt, the draught from the passage that touched my face, but, in waking, I seemed to see something white, like a shroud, dancing before my eyes.... Curious, was it not?" went on M. Villenave, with a shiver, as though he felt cold through and through. "But here you are, so much the better!" And he held out his hand to me. I responded to his courtesy, transferring to my left hand the letter I had brought him in my right. "What have you there?" asked M. Villenave. "Ah! pardon, I was forgetting ... it is a letter which Françoise gave me for you and that is the reason I disturbed you." "Thanks ... Stop a minute, would you please feel about for a match? I am really quite bewildered still, and if I were superstitious I should believe I had had a presentiment." He took the match I held out to him and lit it in the red embers on the hearth. Directly the match caught fire, we could distinguish objects in the room by its flickering light, faint though it was. "Oh! good gracious!" I exclaimed suddenly, "what has happened to your beautiful pastel?"