t be an end put to this," he said to himself as he re-entered
his own home.

When Ursula came down, bring her certificates and those of La Bougival,
she found Monsieur Bongrand walking up and down the salon with great
strides.

"Have you no idea what the conduct of that huge idiot means?" he said.

"None that I can tell," she replied.

Bongrand looked at her with inquiring surprise.

"Then we have the same idea," he said. "Here, keep the number of
your certificates, in case I lose them; you should always take that
precaution."

Bongrand himself wrote the number of the two certificates, hers and that
of La Bougival, and gave them to her.

"Adieu, my child, I shall be gone two days, but you will see me on the
third."

That night the apparition appeared to Ursula in a singular manner. She
thought her bed was in the cemetery of Nemours, and that her uncle's
grave was at the foot of it. The white stone, on which she read the
inscription, opened, like the cover of an oblong album. She uttered a
piercing cry, but the doctor's spectre slowly rose. First she saw his
yellow head, with its fringe of white hair, which shone as if surmounted
by a halo. Beneath the bald forehead the eyes were like two gleams of
light; the dead man rose as if impelled by some superior force or will.
Ursula's body trembled; her flesh was like a burning garment, and there
was (as she subsequently said) another self moving within her bodily
presence. "Mercy!" she cried, "mercy, godfather!" "It is too late," he
said, in the voice of death,--to use the poor girl's own expression when
she related this new dream to the abbe. "He has been warned; he has paid
no heed to the warning. The days of his son are numbered. If he does not
confess all and restore what he has taken within a certain time he must
lose his son, who will die a violent and horrible death. Let him know
this." The spectre pointed to a line of figures which gleamed upon the
side of the tomb as if written with fire, and said, "There is his doom."
When her uncle lay down again in his grave Ursula heard the sound of
the stone falling back into its place, and immediately after, in the
distance, a strange sound of horses and the cries of men.

The next day Ursula was prostrate. She could not rise, so terribly had
the dream overcome her. She begged her nurse to find the Abbe Chaperon
and bring him to her. The good priest came as soon as he had said mass,
but he was not surprised at Ursula'