He went to her with open arms, and she fell into them almost fainting.

“Adieu, Monsieur,” he said to the notary, “please leave us.”

He carried his child to an immense Louis XV. sofa which was in his study, looked for a phial of hartshorn among his remedies, and made her inhale it.

“Take my place,” said the doctor to Bongrand, who was terrified; “I must be alone with her.”

The justice of peace accompanied the notary to the gate, asking him, but without showing any eagerness, what was the matter with Ursula.

“I don’t know,” replied Dionis.  “She was standing by the pagoda, listening to us, and just as her uncle (so-called) refused to lend some money at my request to young de Portenduere who is in prison for debt,—­for he has not had, like Monsieur du Rouvre, a Monsieur Bongrand to defend him,—­she turned pale and staggered.  Can she love him?  Is there anything between them?”

“At fifteen years of age? pooh!” replied Bongrand.

“She was born in February, 1813; she’ll be sixteen in four months.”

“I don’t believe she ever saw him,” said the judge.  “No, it is only a nervous attack.”

“Attack of the heart, more likely,” said the notary.

Dionis was delighted with this discovery, which would prevent the marriage “in extremis” which they dreaded,—­the only sure means by which the doctor could defraud his relatives.  Bongrand, on the other hand, saw a private castle of his own demolished; he had long thought of marrying his son to Ursula.

“If the poor girl loves that youth it will be a misfortune for her,” replied Bongrand after a pause.  “Madame de Portenduere is a Breton and infatuated with her noble blood.”

“Luckily—­I mean for the honor of the Portendueres,” replied the notary, on the point of betraying himself.

Let us do the faithful and upright Bongrand the justice to say that before he re-entered the salon he had abandoned, not without deep regret for his son, the hope he had cherished of some day calling Ursula his daughter.  He meant to give his son six thousand francs a year the day he was appointed substitute, and if the doctor would give Ursula a hundred thousand francs what a pearl of a home the pair would make!  His Eugene was so loyal and charming a fellow!  Perhaps he had praised his Eugene too often, and that had made the doctor distrustful.

“I shall have to come down to the mayor’s daughter,” he thought.  “But Ursula without any money is worth more than Mademoiselle Levrault-Cremiere with a million.  However, the thing to be done is to manoeuvre the marriage with this little Portenduere—­if she really loves him.”

The doctor, after closing the door to the library and that to the garden, took his goddaughter to the window which opened upon the river.

“What ails you, my child?” he said.  “Your life is my life.  Without your smiles what would become of me?”