acred office I hold. As soon as Sister Ursula
heard of your return to Paris, she obtained my permission to address to
you a letter, subjected, when finished, to my perusal and sanction. She
felt that she had much on her mind which her feeble state might forbid
her to make known to you in conversation with 'sufficient fulness; and
as she could only have seen you in presence of one of the sisters
she imagined that there would also be less restraint in a written
communication. In fine, her request was that, when you called, I might
first place this letter in your hands, and allow you time to read it,
before being admitted to her presence; when a few words conveying your
promise to attend to the wishes with which you would then be acquainted,
would suffice for an interview in her exhausted condition. Do I make
myself understood?"

"Certainly, Madame,--and the letter?"

"She had concluded last evening; and when I took leave of her later in
the night, she placed it in my hands for approval. M. le Vicomte, it
pains me to say that there is much in the tone of that letter which I
grieve for and condemn. And it was my intention to point this out to our
sister at morning, and tell her that passages must be altered before
I could give to you the letter. Her sudden decease deprived me of this
opportunity. I could not, of course, alter or erase a line--a word.
My only option was to suppress the letter altogether, or give it you
intact. The Abbe thinks that, on the whole, my duty does not forbid the
dictate of my own impulse--my own feelings; and I now place this letter
in your hands."

De Mauleon took a packet, unsealed, from the thin white fingers of
the Superieure; and as he bent to receive it, lifted towards her eyes
eloquent with sorrowful, humble pathos, in which it was impossible for
the heart of a woman who had loved not to see a reference to the past
which the lips did not dare to utter.

A faint, scarce-perceptible blush stole over the marble cheek of the
nun. But, with an exquisite delicacy, in which survived the woman while
reigned the nun, she replied to the appeal.

"M. Victor de Mauleon, before, having thus met, we part for ever, permit
a poor religieuse to say with what joy--a joy rendered happier because
it was tearful--I have learned through the Abbe Vertpre that the honour
which, as between man and man, no one who had once known you could ever
doubt, you have lived to vindicate from calumny."

"Ah; you have h