“As the old gentleman did not mean to stay, he was not asked for it.  The servant, by his orders no doubt, pretended not to speak French.”

“And the letter which came so late to Abbe de Grancey?” said Rosalie.

“It was Monsieur Girardet, no doubt, who ought to have delivered it; but Jerome says that poor Monsieur Girardet, who was much attached to lawyer Savaron, was as much upset as he was.  So he who came so mysteriously, as Mademoiselle Galard says, is gone away just as mysteriously.”

After hearing this narrative, Mademoiselle de Watteville fell into a brooding and absent mood, which everybody could see.  It is useless to say anything of the commotion that arose in Besancon on the disappearance of Monsieur Savaron.  It was understood that the Prefect had obliged him with the greatest readiness by giving him at once a passport across the frontier, for he was thus quit of his only opponent.  Next day Monsieur de Chavoncourt was carried to the top by a majority of a hundred and forty votes.

“Jack is gone by the way he came,” said an elector on hearing of Albert Savaron’s flight.

This event lent weight to the prevailing prejudice at Besancon against strangers; indeed, two years previously they had received confirmation from the affair of the Republican newspaper.  Ten days later Albert de Savarus was never spoken of again.  Only three persons—­Girardet the attorney, the Vicar-General, and Rosalie—­were seriously affected by his disappearance.  Girardet knew that the white-haired stranger was Prince Soderini, for he had seen his card, and he told the Vicar-General; but Rosalie, better informed than either of them, had known for three months past that the Duc d’Argaiolo was dead.

In the month of April 1836 no one had had any news from or of Albert de Savarus.  Jerome and Mariette were to be married, but the Baroness confidentially desired her maid to wait till her daughter was married, saying that the two weddings might take place at the same time.

“It is time that Rosalie should be married,” said the Baroness one day to Monsieur de Watteville.  “She is nineteen, and she is fearfully altered in these last months.”

“I do not know what ails her,” said the Baron.

“When fathers do not know what ails their daughters, mothers can guess,” said the Baroness; “we must get her married.”

“I am quite willing,” said the Baron.  “I shall give her les Rouxey now that the Court has settled our quarrel with the authorities of Riceys by fixing the boundary line at three hundred feet up the side of the Dent de Vilard.  I am having a trench made to collect all the water and carry it into the lake.  The village did not appeal, so the decision is final.”

“It has never occurred to you,” said Madame de Watteville, “that this decision cost me thirty thousand francs handed over to Chantonnit.  That peasant would take nothing else; he sold us peace.—­If you give away les Rouxey, you will have nothing left,” said the Baroness.