“He could not,” said Ursula, telling her dream to the abbe, “light the first two matches, but the third took fire; he burned the papers and buried their remains in the ashes.  Then my godfather brought me back to our house, and I saw Minoret-Levrault slipping into the library, where he took from the third volume of Pandects three certificates of twelve thousand francs each; also, from the preceding volume, a number of banknotes.  ‘He is,’ said my godfather, ’the cause of all the trouble which has brought you to the verge of the tomb; but God wills that you shall yet be happy.  You will not die now; you will marry Savinien.  If you love me, and if you love Savinien, I charge you to demand your fortune from my nephew.  Swear it.’”

Resplendent as though transfigured, the spectre had so powerful an influence on Ursula’s soul that she promised all her uncle asked, hoping to put an end to the nightmare.  She woke suddenly and found herself standing in the middle of her bedroom, facing her godfather’s portrait, which had been placed there during her illness.  She went back to bed and fell asleep after much agitation, and on waking again she remembered all the particulars of this singular vision; but she dared not speak of it.  Her judgment and her delicacy both shrank from revealing a dream the end and object of which was her pecuniary benefit.  She attributed the vision, not unnaturally, to remarks made by La Bougival the preceding evening, when the old woman talked of the doctor’s intended liberality and of her own convictions on that subject.  But the dream returned, with aggravated circumstances which made it fearful to the poor girl.  On the second occasion the icy hand of her godfather was laid upon her shoulder, causing her the most horrible distress, an indefinable sensation.  “You must obey the dead,” he said, in a sepulchral voice.  “Tears,” said Ursula, relating her dreams, “fell from his white, wide-open eyes.”

The third time the vision came the dead man took her by the braids of her long hair and showed her the post master talking with Goupil and promising money if he would remove Ursula to Sens.  Ursula then decided to relate the three dreams to the Abbe Chaperon.

“Monsieur l’abbe,” she said, “do you believe that the dead reappear?”

“My child, sacred history, profane history, and modern history, have much testimony to that effect; but the Church has never made it an article of faith; and as for science, in France science laughs at the idea.”

“What do you believe?”

“That the power of God is infinite.”

“Did my godfather ever speak to you of such matters?”

“Yes, often.  He had entirely changed his views of them.  His conversion, as he told me at least twenty times, dated from the day when a woman in Paris heard you praying for him in Nemours, and saw the red dot you made against Saint-Savinien’s day in your almanac.”

Ursula uttered a piercing cry, which alarmed the priest; she remembered the scene when, on returning to Nemours, her godfather read her soul, and took away the almanac.