Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/162

 this as a warning and leave me in peace. If any one of them were to meddle in any way with what I consider I ought to do for this child”—he pointed to his godchild—“I would return from the next world to torment him! And so Monsieur Savinien de Portenduère may indeed remain in prison if anyone reckons upon me to get him out,” added the doctor. “I will never sell my stock.”

Upon hearing this last fragment of the sentence, Ursule experienced the first and only sorrow which had ever overtaken her; she leant her forehead against the blind and clung to it for support.

“Mon Dieu! what is the matter with her?” cried the old doctor, “she is quite white! Such a disturbance after dinner might kill her!”

He stretched out his arm to catch Ursule, who fell almost fainting.

“Good-bye, sir, leave me,” he said to the notary.

He carried his goddaughter to an immense armchair of the time of Louis XV., which was in his study, seized a bottle of ether from his dispensary and made her inhale it.

“Take my place, my friend,” he said to the terrified Bongrand, “I want to be alone with her.”

The justice of the peace escorted the notary as far as the gate, asking him without any show of eagerness:

“What happened to Ursule?”

“I do not know,” replied Monsieur Dionis, “she was on the steps listening to us; and, when her uncle refused to lend the sum necessary to young