"I could hardly keep from laughing.
"'Remember,' he said, 'two years back, for that is when your paralytic stroke came on. You must have had a quarrel with a kinsman or kinswoman?'
"It was true. Poor Marie had been unjustly accused of
the theft of a watch which was an heirloom belonging to an aunt of hers. The aunt had sworn vengeance.
"'Your aunt lives in Lyons?'
"She nodded.
"'Nothing astonishing about that,' continued the priest. 'In Lyons, among the lower orders, there are witch doctors who know a little about the witchcraft practised in the country. But be reassured. These people are not powerful. They know little more than the A B C's of the art. Then, mademoiselle, you wish to be cured?'
"And after she replied that she did, he said gently, 'That is all. You may go.'
"He did not touch her, did not prescribe any remedy. I came away persuaded that he was a mountebank. But when, three days later, the girl was able to raise her arms, and all her pain had left her, and when, at the end of a week, she could walk, I had to yield in face of the evidence. I went back to see him, had occasion to do him a service; and thus our relations began."
"But what are his methods?"