from Besancon, they found Monsieur de Watteville past all
hope, in spite of the intelligent treatment of the Rouxey doctor. The
fright had produced serious effusion on the brain, and the shock to the
digestion was helping to kill the poor man.

This death, which would never have happened, said Madame de Watteville,
if her husband had stayed at Besancon, was ascribed by her to her
daughter's obstinacy. She took an aversion for Rosalie, abandoning
herself to grief and regrets that were evidently exaggerated. She spoke
of the Baron as "her dear lamb!"

The last of the Wattevilles was buried on an island in the lake at les
Rouxey, where the Baroness had a little Gothic monument erected of white
marble, like that called the tomb of Heloise at Pere-Lachaise.

A month after this catastrophe the mother and daughter had settled
in the Hotel de Rupt, where they lived in savage silence. Rosalie was
suffering from real sorrow, which had no visible outlet; she accused
herself of her father's death, and she feared another disaster, much
greater in her eyes, and very certainly her own work; neither Girardet
the attorney nor the Abbe de Grancey could obtain any information
concerning Albert. This silence was appalling. In a paroxysm of
repentance she felt that she must confess to the Vicar-General the
horrible machinations by which she had separated Francesca and Albert.
They had been simple, but formidable. Mademoiselle de Watteville had
intercepted Albert's letters to the Duchess as well as that in which
Francesca announced her husband's illness, warning her lover that she
could write to him no more during the time while she was devoted, as was
her duty, to the care of the dying man. Thus, while Albert was wholly
occupied with election matters, the Duchess had written him only two
letters; one in which she told him that the Duc d'Argaiolo was in
danger, and one announcing her widowhood--two noble and beautiful
letters which Rosalie kept back.

After several nights' labor she succeeded in imitating Albert's writing
very perfectly. She had substituted three letters of her own writing
for three of Albert's, and the rough copies which she showed to the old
priest made him shudder--the genius of evil was revealed in them to such
perfection. Rosalie, writing in Albert's name, had prepared the Duchess
for a change in the Frenchman's feelings, falsely representing him as
faithless, and she had answered the news of the Duc d'Argaiolo's de