to bring
scandal and disgrace on the name he had with so much difficulty, and
after so lengthened an anguish, partially cleared in his own person.

Raoul left De Mauleon at the gate of the convent, and took his way
towards the hospitals where he visited, and the poor whom he relieved.

Victor was conducted silently into the convent parloir; and, after
waiting there several minutes, the door opened, and the Superieure
entered. As she advanced towards him, with stately step and solemn
visage, De Mauleon recoiled, and uttered a half-suppressed exclamation
that partook both of amaze and awe. Could it be possible? Was this
majestic woman, with the grave impassible aspect, once the ardent girl
whose tender letters he had cherished through stormy years, and only
burned on the night before the most perilous of his battle-fields? This
the one, the sole one, whom in his younger dreams he had seen as his
destined wife? It was so--it was. Doubt vanished when he heard her
voice; and yet how different every tone, every accent, from those of the
low, soft, thrilling music that had breathed in the voice of old!

"M. de Mauleon," said the Superieure, calmly, "I grieve to sadden you by
very mournful intelligence. Yesterday evening, when the Abbe undertook
to convey to you the request of our Sister Ursula, although she was
beyond mortal hope of recovery--as otherwise you will conceive that I
could not have relaxed the rules of this house so as to sanction your
visit--there was no apprehension of immediate danger. It was believed
that her sufferings would be prolonged for some days. I saw her late
last night before retiring to my cell, and she seemed even stronger than
she had been for the last week. A sister remained at watch in her cell.
Towards morning she fell into apparently quiet sleep, and in that sleep
she passed away." The Superieure here crossed herself, and murmured
pious words in Latin. "Dead! my poor niece!" said Victor, feelingly,
roused from his stun at the first sight of the Superieure by her
measured tones, and the melancholy information she so composedly
conveyed to him. "I cannot, then, even learn why she so wished to see me
once more,--or what she might have requested at my hands!"

"Pardon, M. le Vicomte. Such sorrowful consolation I have resolved to
afford you, not without scruples of conscience, but not without sanction
of the excellent Abbe Vertpre, whom I summoned early this morning to
decide my duties in the s