last night before retiring to my cell, and she seemed even stronger than
she had been for the last week. A sister remained at watch in her cell.
Towards morning she fell into apparently quiet sleep, and in that sleep
she passed away." The Superieure here crossed herself, and murmured
pious words in Latin. "Dead! my poor niece!" said Victor, feelingly,
roused from his stun at the first sight of the Superieure by her measured
tones, and the melancholy information she so composedly conveyed to him.
"I cannot, then, even learn why she so wished to see me once more,--or
what she might have requested at my hands!"

"Pardon, M. le Vicomte. Such sorrowful consolation I have resolved to
afford you, not without scruples of conscience, but not without sanction
of the excellent Abbe Vertpre, whom I summoned early this morning to
decide my duties in the sacred office I hold. As soon as Sister Ursula
heard of your return to Paris, she obtained my permission to address to
you a letter, subjected, when finished, to my perusal and sanction. She
felt that she had much on her mind which her feeble state might forbid
her to make known to you in conversation with 'sufficient fulness; and as
she could only have seen you in presence of one of the sisters she
imagined that there would also be less restraint in a written
communication. In fine, her request was that, when you called, I might
first place this letter in your hands, and allow you time to read it,
before being admitted to her presence; when a few words conveying your
promise to attend to the wishes with which you would then be acquainted,
would suffice for an interview in her exhausted condition. Do I make
myself understood?"

"Certainly, Madame,--and the letter?"

"She had concluded last evening; and when I took leave of her later in