e de Saint-Vier before she died; then he ordered post
horses for six o'clock. He went home to pack; no doubt he wrote a lot of
letters; finally, he settled everything with Monsieur Girardet, who went
to him and stayed till seven. Jerome carried a note to Monsieur Boucher,
with whom his master was to have dined; and then, at half-past seven,
the lawyer set out, leaving Jerome with three months' wages, and telling
him to find another place.

"He left his keys with Monsieur Girardet, whom he took home, and at
his house, Jerome says, he took a plate of soup, for at half-past seven
Monsieur Girardet had not yet dined. When Monsieur Savaron got into the
carriage he looked like death. Jerome, who, of course, saw his master
off, heard him tell the postilion 'The Geneva Road!'"

"Did Jerome ask the name of the stranger at the Hotel National?"

"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 inf