ith the proceeds could repay
some money owed by Savaron to Girardet, who on the occasion of
his inexplicable departure had lent him five thousand francs while
undertaking to collect his assets. When Girardet asked what had become
of the handsome and noble pleader, to whom he had been so much attached,
the clerk replied that no one knew but his master, and that the notary
had seemed greatly distressed by the contents of the last letter he had
received from Monsieur Albert de Savarus.

On hearing this, the Vicar-General wrote to Leopold. This was the worthy
notary's reply:--

"To Monsieur l'Abbe de Grancey,
Vicar-General of the Diocese of Besancon.

"PARIS.

"Alas, monsieur, it is in nobody's power to restore Albert to the
life of the world; he has renounced it. He is a novice in the
monastery of the Grand Chartreuse near Grenoble. You know, better
than I who have but just learned it, that on the threshold of that
cloister everything dies. Albert, foreseeing that I should go to
him, placed the General of the Order between my utmost efforts and
himself. I know his noble soul well enough to be sure that he is
the victim of some odious plot unknown to us; but everything is at
an end. The Duchesse d'Argaiolo, now Duchesse de Rhetore, seems to
me to have carried severity to an extreme. At Belgirate, which she
had left when Albert flew thither, she had left instructions
leading him to believe that she was living in London. From London
Albert went in search of her to Naples, and from Naples to Rome,
where she was now engaged to the Duc de Rhetore. When Albert
succeeded in seeing Madame d'Argaiolo, at Florence, it was at the
ceremony of her marriage.

"Our poor friend swooned in the church, and even when he was in
danger of death he could never obtain any explanation from this
woman, who must have had I know not what in her heart. For seven
months Albert had traveled in pursuit of a cruel creature who
thought it sport to escape him; he knew not where or how to catch
her.

"I saw him on his way through Paris; and if you had seen him, as I
did, you would have felt that not a word might be spoken about the
Duchess, at the risk of bringing on an attack which might have
wrecked his reason. If he had known what his crime was, he might
have found means to justify himself; but being falsely accused of
being married!--what c