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 h