“But,” she said, continuing, “if I return to my orphaned condition, I shall know how to take up its feelings.  After all, could I have tied a mill-stone round the neck of him I love?  What can he do here?  Who am I to bind him to me?  Besides, do I not love him with a friendship so divine that I can bear the loss of my own happiness and my hopes?  You know I have often blamed myself for letting my hopes rest upon a grave, and for knowing they were waiting on that poor old lady’s death.  If Savinien is rich and happy with another I have enough to pay for my entrance to a convent, where I shall go at once.  There can no more be two loves in a woman’s heart than there can be two masters in heaven, and the life of a religious is attractive to me.”

“He could not let his mother go alone to Rouvre,” said the abbe, gently.

“Do not let us talk of that, my dear good friend,” she answered.  “I will write to-night and set him free.  I am glad to have to close the windows of this room,” she continued, telling her old friend of the anonymous letters, but declaring that she would not allow any inquiries to be made as to who her unknown lover might be.

“Why! it was an anonymous letter that first took Madame de Portenduere to Rouvre,” cried the abbe.  “You are annoyed for some object by evil persons.”

“How can that be?  Neither Savinien nor I have injured any one; and I am no longer an obstacle to the prosperity of others.”

“Well, well, my child,” said the abbe, quietly, “let us profit by this tempest, which has scattered our little circle, to put the library in order.  The books are still in heaps.  Bongrand and I want to get them in order; we wish to make a search among them.  Put your trust in God, and remember also that in our good Bongrand and in me you have two devoted friends.”

“That is much, very much,” she said, going with him to the threshold of the door, where she stretched out her neck like a bird looking over its nest, hoping against hope to see Savinien.

Just then Minoret and Goupil, returning from a walk in the meadows, stopped as they passed, and the colossus spoke to Ursula.

“Is anything the matter, cousin; for we are still cousins, are we not?  You seem changed.”

Goupil looked so ardently at Ursula that she was frightened, and went back into the house without replying.

“She is cross,” said Minoret to the abbe.

“Mademoiselle Mirouet is quite right not to talk to men on the threshold of her door,” said the abbe; “she is too young—­”

“Oh!” said Goupil.  “I am told she doesn’t lack lovers.”

The abbe bowed hurriedly and went as fast as he could to the Rue des Bourgeois.

“Well,” said Goupil to Minoret, “the thing is working.  Did you notice how pale she was.  Within a fortnight she’ll have left the town—­you’ll see.”

“Better have you for a friend than an enemy,” cried Minoret, frightened at the atrocious grin which gave to Goupil’s face the diabolical expression of the Mephistopheles of Joseph Brideau.