Savinien did not go to Montargis.  He received in the course of the day an anonymous letter containing a prophecy:—­

“You will never marry Ursula.  If you wish her to live, give her up at once to a man who loves her more than you love her.  He has made himself a musician and an artist to please her, and he would rather see her dead than let her be your wife.”

The doctor came to Ursula three times in the course of that day, for she was really in danger of death from the horror of this mysterious persecution.  Feeling that some infernal hand had plunged her into the mire, the poor girl lay like a martyr; she said nothing, but lifted her eyes to heaven, and wept no more; she seemed awaiting other blows, and prayed fervently.

“I am glad I cannot go down into the salon,” she said to Monsieur Bongrand and the abbe, who left her as little as possible; “He would come, and I am now unworthy of the looks with which he blessed me.  Do you think he will suspect me?”

“If Savinien does not discover the author of these infamies he means to get the assistance of the Paris police,” said Bongrand.

“Whoever it is will know I am dying,” said Ursula; “and will cease to trouble me.”

The abbe, Bongrand, and Savinien were lost in conjectures and suspicions.  Together with Tiennette, La Bougival, and two persons on whom the abbe could rely, they kept the closest watch and were on their guard night and day for a week; but no indiscretion could betray Goupil, whose machinations were known to himself only.  There were no more serenades and no more letters, and little by little the watch relaxed.  Bongrand thought the author of the wrong was frightened; Savinien believed that the procureur du roi to whom he had sent the letters received by Ursula and himself and his mother, had taken steps to put an end to the persecution.

The armistice was not of long duration, however.  When the doctor had checked the nervous fever from which poor Ursula was suffering, and just as she was recovering her courage, a rope-ladder was found, early one morning in July, attached to her window.  The postilion of the mail-post declared that as he drove past the house in the middle of the night a small man was in the act of coming down the ladder, and though he tried to pull up, his horses, being startled, carried him down the hill so fast that he was out of Nemours before he stopped them.  Some of the persons who frequented Dionis’s salon attributed these manoeuvres to the Marquis du Rouvre, then much hampered in means, for Massin held his notes to a large amount.  It was said that a prompt marriage of his daughter to Savinien would save Chateau du Rouvre from his creditors; and Madame de Portenduere, the gossips added, would approve of anything that would discredit and degrade Ursula and lead to this marriage of her son.

So far from this being true, the old lady was well-nigh vanquished by the sufferings of the innocent girl.  The abbe was so painfully overcome by this act of infernal wickedness that he fell ill himself and was kept to the house for several days.  Poor Ursula, to whom this last insult had caused a relapse, received by post a letter from the abbe, which was taken in by La Bougival on recognizing the handwriting.  It was as follows:—­