Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/193

 the notary’s about the old lady’s farm, I guessed that he was discounting his mother’s death.”

“Do you believe him capable of it?” said Ursule, darting a terrible look at Monsieur Bongrand, who said to himself: “Alas! yes! she loves him.”

“Yes and no,” said the Nemours doctor, “Savinien has good in him and that is why he is in prison; rascals never go there.”

“My friends,” cried old Minoret, “this is quite enough for to-night; one must not allow a poor mother to weep a moment longer, when one can dry her tears.”

The four friends rose and went out Ursule accompanied them as far as the iron gate, watching her godfather and the curé knocking at the opposite door; and, when Tiennette had shown them in, she sat down on one of the posts outside the house, with La Bougival beside her.

“Madame la Vicomtesse,” said the curé, who was the first to enter the little parlor, “Monsieur le Docteur did not at all wish you to take the trouble to go to his house—”

“I belong too much to bygone days, madame,” rejoined the doctor, “not to know all that a man owes to a lady of your rank, and I am only too happy, after what Monsieur le Curé has told me, to be able to render you some service.”

Madame de Portenduère, upon whom the step agreed upon had weighed so heavily that, since the Abbé Chaperon’s departure, she had resolved to apply to the Nemours notary, was so surprised at