"She is resigned and calm. I have promised her I will not, while she
lives, bury her other son: I renounce my dreams of the monastery."

Raoul did not remain many minutes at Isaura's. The Abbe accompanied him
on his way home. "I have a request to make to you," said the former;
"you know, of course, your distant cousin the Vicomte de Mauleon?"

"Yes. Not so well as I ought, for Enguerrand liked him."

"Well enough, at all events, to call on him with a request which I am
commissioned to make, but it might come better from you as a kinsman. I
am a stranger to him, and I know not whether a man of that sort would not
regard as an officious intermeddling any communication made to him by a
priest. The matter, however, is a very simple one. At the convent of
------- there is a poor nun who is, I fear, dying. She has an intense
desire to see M. de Mauleon, whom she declares to be her uncle, and her
only surviving relative. The laws of the convent are not too austere
to prevent the interview she seeks in such a case. I should add that I
am not acquainted with her previous history. I am not the confessor of
the sisterhood; he, poor man, was badly wounded by a chance ball a few
days ago when attached to an ambulance on the ramparts. As soon as the
surgeon would allow him to see any one, he sent for me, and bade me go to
the nun I speak of--Sister Ursula. It seems that he had informed her
that M. de Mauleon was at Paris, and had promised to ascertain his
address. His wound had prevented his doing so, but he trusted to me to
procure the information. I am well acquainted with the Superieure of the
convent, and I flatter myself that she holds me in esteem. I had
therefore no difficulty to obtain her permission to see this poor nun,
which I did this evening. She implored me for the peace of her soul to
lose no time in finding out M. de Mauleon's address, and entreating him