Ursula went down the steps of the portico which led to the pagoda at the foot of the garden. She stood for some minutes slowly arranging the blinds and watching the sunset. The doctor and notary were at the end of the terrace, but as they turned she heard the doctor make an answer which reached the pagoda where she was.
"My heirs would be delighted to see me invest my property in real estate or mortgages; they imagine it would be safer there. I know exactly what they are saying; perhaps you come from them. Let me tell you, my good sir, that my disposition of my property is irrevocably made. My heirs will have the capital I brought here with me; I wish them to know that, and to let me alone. If any one of them attempts to interfere with what I think proper to do for that young girl (pointing to Ursula) I shall come back from the other world and torment him. So, Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere will stay in prison if they count on me to get him out. I shall not sell my property in the Funds."
Hearing this last fragment of the sentence Ursula experienced the first and only pain which so far had ever touched her. She laid her head against the blind to steady herself.
"Good God, what is the matter with her?" thought the old doctor. "She has no color; such an emotion after dinner might kill her."
He went to her with open arms, and she fell into them almost fainting.
"Adieu, Monsieur," he said to the notary, "please leave us."
He carried his child to an immense Louis XV. sofa which was in his study, looked for a phial of hartshorn among his remedies, and made her inhale it.
"Take my place," said the doctor to Bongrand, who was terrified; "I must be alone with her."
The justice of peace accompanied the notary to the gate, asking him, but without showing any eagerness, what was the matter with Ursula.
"I don't know," replied Dionis. "She was standing by the pagoda, listening to us, and just as her uncle (so-called) refused to lend some money at my request to young de Portenduere who is in prison for debt,--for he has not had, like Monsieur du Rouvre, a Monsieur Bongrand to defend him,--she turned pale and staggered. Can she love him? Is there anything between them?"
"At fifteen years of age? pooh!" replied Bongrand.
"She was born in February, 1813; she'll be sixteen in four months."
"I don't believe she ever saw him," said the judge. "No, it is only a nervous attack."
"Attack of the heart, more likely," said the notary.
Dionis was delighted with this discovery, which would prevent the marriage "in extremis" which they dreaded,--the only sure means by which the doctor could defraud his relatives. Bongrand, on the other hand, saw a private castle of his own demolished; he had long thought of marrying his son to Ursula.
"If the poor girl loves that youth it will be a misfortune for her," replied Bongrand after a pause. "Madame de Portenduere is a Breton and infatuated with her noble blood."
"Luckily--I mean for the honor of the Portendueres," replied the notary, on the point of betraying himself.
Let us do the faithful and upright Bongrand the justice to say that before he re-entered the salon he had abandoned, not without deep regret for his son, the hope he had cherished of some day calling Ursula his daughter. He meant to give his son six thousand francs a year the day he was appointed substitute, and if the doctor would give Ursula a hundred thousand francs what a pearl of a home the pair would make! His Eugene was so loyal and charming a fellow! Perhaps he had praised his Eugene too often, and that had made the doctor distrustful.
"I shall have to come down to the mayor's daughter," he thought. "But Ursula without any money is worth more than Mademoiselle Levrault-Cremiere with a million. However, the thing to be done is to manoeuvre the marriage with this little Portenduere--if she really loves him."
The doctor, after closing the door to the library and that to the garden, took his goddaughter to the window which opened upon the river.
"What ails you, my child?" he said. "Your life is my life. Without your smiles what would become of me?"
"Savinien in prison!" she said.
With these words a shower of tears fell from her eyes and she began to sob.
"Saved!" thought the doctor, who was holding her pulse with great anxiety. "Alas! she has all the sensitiveness of my poor wife," he thought, fetching a stethoscope which he put to Ursula's heart, applying his ear to it. "Ah, that's all right," he said to himself. "I did not know, my darling, that you loved any one as yet," he added, looking at her; "but think out loud to me as you think to yourself; tell me all that has passed between you."
"I do not love him, godfather; we have never spoken to each other," she answered, sobbing. "But to hear that he is in prison, and to know that you--harshly--refused to get him out--you, so good!"
"Ursula, my dear little good angel, if you do not love him why did you put that little red dot against Saint Savinien's day just as you put one before that of Saint Denis? Come, tell me everything about your little love-affair."
Ursula blushed, swallowed a few tears, and for a moment there was silence between them.
"Surely you are not afraid of your father, your friend, mother, doctor, and godfather, whose heart is now more tender than it ever has been."
"No, no, dear godfather," she said. "I will open my heart to you. Last May, Monsieur Savinien came to see his mother. Until then I had never taken notice of him. When he left home to live in Paris I was a child, and I did not see any difference between him and--all of you--except perhaps that I loved you, and never thought of loving any one else.
