Did you, or did you not, fling these words
in her teeth?"

"Yes," said Rosalie.

"Well, I know her," Monsieur de Grancey went on. "In a few months she
will be Comtesse de Soulas! She will be sure to have children; she will
give Monsieur de Soulas forty thousand francs a year; she will benefit
him in other ways, and reduce your share of her fortune as much
as possible. You will be poor as long as she lives, and she is but
eight-and-thirty! Your whole estate will be the land of les Rouxey, and
the small share left to you after your father's legal debts are settled,
if, indeed, your mother should consent to forego her claims on les
Rouxey. From the point of view of material advantages, you have done
badly for yourself; from the point of view of feeling, I imagine you
have wrecked your life. Instead of going to your mother--" Rosalie shook
her head fiercely.

"To your mother," the priest went on, "and to religion, where you would,
at the first impulse of your heart, have found enlightenment, counsel,
and guidance, you chose to act in your own way, knowing nothing of life,
and listening only to passion!"

These words of wisdom terrified Mademoiselle de Watteville.

"And what ought I to do now?" she asked after a pause.

"To repair your wrong-doing, you must ascertain its extent," said the
Abbe.

"Well, I will write to the only man who can know anything of Albert's
fate, Monsieur Leopold Hannequin, a notary in Paris, his friend since
childhood."

"Write no more, unless to do honor to truth," said the Vicar-General.
"Place the real and the false letters in my hands, confess everything in
detail as though I were the keeper of your conscience, asking me how you
may expiate your sins, and doing as I bid you. I shall see--for, above
all things, restore this unfortunate man to his innocence in the eyes
of the woman he had made his divinity on earth. Though he has lost his
happiness, Albert must still hope for justification."

Rosalie promised to obey the Abbe, hoping that the steps he might take
would perhaps end in bringing Albert back to her.

Not long after Mademoiselle de Watteville's confession a clerk came to
Besancon from Monsieur Leopold Hannequin, armed with a power of
attorney from Albert; he called first on Monsieur Girardet, begging
his assistance in selling the house belonging to Monsieur Savaron. The
attorney undertook to do this out of friendship for Albert. The clerk
from Paris sold the furniture, and w