hich were enough to make him guess everything.

"She is in love with Albert Savarus!" thought the Vicar-General.

He rose and took leave. He was going towards the door when, in the next
room, he was overtaken by Rosalie, who said:

"Monsieur de Grancey, it was from Albert!"

"How do you know that it was his writing, to recognize it from so far?"

The girl's reply, caught as she was in the toils of her impatience and
rage, seemed to the Abbe sublime.

"I love him!--What is the matter?" she said after a pause.

"He gives up the election."

Rosalie put her finger to her lip.

"I ask you to be as secret as if it were a confession," said she before
returning to the drawing-room. "If there is an end of the election,
there is an end of the marriage with Sidonie."

* * * * *

In the morning, on her way to Mass, Mademoiselle de Watteville heard
from Mariette some of the circumstances which had prompted Albert's
disappearance at the most critical moment of his life.

"Mademoiselle, an old gentleman from Paris arrived yesterday morning at
the Hotel National; he came in his own carriage with four horses, and
a courier in front, and a servant. Indeed, Jerome, who saw the carriage
returning, declares he could only be a prince or a _milord_."

"Was there a coronet on the carriage?" asked Rosalie.

"I do not know," said Mariette. "Just as two was striking he came to
call on Monsieur Savarus, and sent in his card; and when he saw it,
Jerome says Monsieur turned as pale as a sheet, and said he was to be
shown in. As he himself locked the door, it is impossible to tell what
the old gentleman and the lawyer said to each other; but they were
together above an hour, and then the old gentleman, with the lawyer,
called up his servant. Jerome saw the servant go out again with an
immense package, four feet long, which looked like a great painting
on canvas. The old gentleman had in his hand a large parcel of papers.
Monsieur Savaron was paler than death, and he, so proud, so dignified,
was in a state to be pitied. But he treated the old gentleman so
respectfully that he could not have been politer to the King himself.
Jerome and Monsieur Albert Savaron escorted the gentleman to his
carriage, which was standing with the horses in. The courier started on
the stroke of three.

"Monsieur Savaron went straight to the Prefecture, and from that to
Monsieur Gentillet, who sold him the old traveling carriage that used
to belong to Madam