Bongrand took Ursula’s hand and kissed it.

“Do you know what Madame Minoret came about?” said the justice as soon as they were in the street.

“What?” asked the priest, looking at Bongrand with an air that seemed merely curious.

“She had some plan for restitution.”

“Then you think—­” began the abbe.

“I don’t think, I know; I have the certainty—­and see there!”

So saying, Bongrand pointed to Minoret, who was coming towards them on his way home.

“When I was a lawyer in the criminal courts,” continued Bongrand, “I naturally had many opportunities to study remorse; but I have never seen any to equal that of this man.  What gives him that flaccidity, that pallor of the cheeks where the skin was once as tight as a drum and bursting with the good sound health of a man without a care?  What has put those black circles round his eyes and dulled their rustic vivacity?  Did you ever expect to see lines of care on that forehead?  Who would have supposed that the brain of that colossus could be excited?  The man has felt his heart!  I am a judge of remorse, just as you are a judge of repentance, my dear abbe.  That which I have hitherto observed has developed in men who were awaiting punishment, or enduring it to get quits with the world; they were either resigned, or breathing vengeance; but here is remorse without expiation, remorse pure and simple, fastening on its prey and rending him.”

The judge stopped Minoret and said:  “Do you know that Mademoiselle Mirouet has refused your son’s hand?”

“But,” interposed the abbe, “do not be uneasy; she will prevent the duel.”

“Ah, then my wife succeeded?” said Minoret.  “I am very glad, for it nearly killed me.”

“You are, indeed, so changed that you are no longer like yourself,” remarked Bongrand.

Minoret looked alternately at the two men to see if the priest had betrayed the dreams; but the abbe’s face was unmoved, expressing only a calm sadness which reassured the guilty man.

“And it is the more surprising,” went on Monsieur Bongrand, “because you ought to be filled with satisfaction.  You are lord of Rouvre and all those farms and mills and meadows and—­with your investments in the Funds, you have an income of one hundred thousand francs—­”

“I haven’t anything in the Funds,” cried Minoret, hastily.

“Pooh,” said Bongrand; “this is just as it was about your son’s love for Ursula,—­first he denied it, and now he asks her in marriage.  After trying to kill Ursula with sorrow you now want her for a daughter-in-law.  My good friend, you have got some secret in your pouch.”

Minoret tried to answer; he searched for words and could find nothing better than:—­

“You’re very queer, monsieur.  Good-day, gentlemen”; and he turned with a slow step into the Rue des Bourgeois.

“He has stolen the fortune of our poor Ursula,” said Bongrand, “but how can we ever find the proof?”