d
come, and I am now unworthy of the looks with which _he_ blessed me. Do
you think _he_ will suspect me?"

"If Savinien does not discover the author of these infamies he means to
get the assistance of the Paris police," said Bongrand.

"Whoever it is will know I am dying," said Ursula; "and will cease to
trouble me."

The abbe, Bongrand, and Savinien were lost in conjectures and
suspicions. Together with Tiennette, La Bougival, and two persons on
whom the abbe could rely, they kept the closest watch and were on their
guard night and day for a week; but no indiscretion could betray Goupil,
whose machinations were known to himself only. There were no more
serenades and no more letters, and little by little the watch relaxed.
Bongrand thought the author of the wrong was frightened; Savinien
believed that the procureur du roi to whom he had sent the letters
received by Ursula and himself and his mother, had taken steps to put an
end to the persecution.

The armistice was not of long duration, however. When the doctor had
checked the nervous fever from which poor Ursula was suffering, and just
as she was recovering her courage, a rope-ladder was found, early one
morning in July, attached to her window. The postilion of the mail-post
declared that as he drove past the house in the middle of the night a
small man was in the act of coming down the ladder, and though he tried
to pull up, his horses, being startled, carried him down the hill so
fast that he was out of Nemours before he stopped them. Some of the
persons who frequented Dionis's salon attributed these manoeuvres to
the Marquis du Rouvre, then much hampered in means, for Massin held
his notes to a large amount. It was said that a prompt marriage of his
daughter to Savinien would save Chateau du Rouvre from his creditors;
and Madame de Portenduere, the gossips added, would approve of anything
that would discredit and degrade Ursula and lead to this marriage of her
son.

So far from this being true, the old lady was well-nigh vanquished by
the sufferings of the innocent girl. The abbe was so painfully overcome
by this act of infernal wickedness that he fell ill himself and was kept
to the house for several days. Poor Ursula, to whom this last insult
had caused a relapse, received by post a letter from the abbe, which
was taken in by La Bougival on recognizing the handwriting. It was as
follows:--

My child,--Leave Nemours, and thus evade the malice of your e