XXV

He rose and took leave. He was going towards the door when, in the

next room, he was overtaken by Rosalie, who said:

"Monsieur de Grancey, it was from Albert!"

"How do you know that it was his writing, to recognize it from so

far?"

The girl's reply, caught as she was in the toils of her impatience and

rage, seemed to the Abbe sublime.

"I love him!--What is the matter?" she said after a pause.

"He gives up the election."

Rosalie put her finger to her lip.

"I ask you to be as secret as if it were a confession," said she

before returning to the drawing-room. "If there is an end of the

election, there is an end of the marriage with Sidonie."

In the morning, on her way to Mass, Mademoiselle de Watteville heard

from Mariette some of the circumstances which had prompted Albert's

disappearance at the most critical moment of his life.

"Mademoiselle, an old gentleman from Paris arrived yesterday morning

at the Hotel National; he came in his own carriage with four horses,

and a courier in front, and a servant. Indeed, Jerome, who saw the

carriage returning, declares he could only be a prince or a /milord/."

"Was there a coronet on the carriage?" asked Rosalie.

"I do not know," said Mariette. "Just as two was striking he came to

call on Monsieur Savarus, and sent in his card; and when he saw it,

Jerome says Monsieur turned as pale as a sheet, and said he was to be

shown in. As he himself locked the door, it is impossible to tell what

the old gentleman and the lawyer said to each other; but they were

together above an hour, and then the old gentleman, with the lawyer,

called up his servant. Jerome saw the servant go out again with an

immense package, four feet long, which looked like a great painting on

canvas. The old gentleman had in his hand a large parcel of papers.

Monsieur Savaron was paler than death, and he, so proud, so dignified,

was in a state to be pitied. But he treated the old gentleman so

respectfully that he could not have been politer to the King himself.

Jerome and Monsieur Albert Savaron escorted the gentleman to his

carriage, which was standing with the horses in. The courier started

on the stroke of three.

"Monsieur Savaron went straight to the Prefecture, and from that to

Monsieur Gentillet, who sold him the old traveling carriage that used

to belong to Madame de Saint-Vier before she died; then he ordered

post horses for six o'clock. He went home to pack; no doubt he wrote a

lot of letters; finally, he settled everything with Monsieur Girardet,

who went to him and stayed till seven. Jerome carried a note to

Monsieur Boucher, with whom his master was to have dined; and then, at

half-past seven, the lawyer set out, leaving Jerome with three months'

wages, and telling him to find another place.

"He left his keys with Monsieur Girardet, whom he took home, and at

his house, Jerome says, he took a plate of soup, for at half-past

seven Monsieur Girardet had not yet dined. When Monsieur Savaron got

into the carriage he looked like death. Jerome, who, of course, saw

his master off, heard him tell the postilion 'The Geneva Road!' "

"Did Jerome ask the name of the stranger at the Hotel National?"

"As the old gentleman did not mean to stay, he was not asked for it.

The servant, by his orders no doubt, pretended not to speak French."

"And the letter which came so late to Abbe de Grancey?" said Rosalie.

"It was Monsieur Girardet, no doubt, who ought to have delivered it;

but Jerome says that poor Monsieur Girardet, who was much attached to

lawyer Savaron, was as much upset as he was. So he who came so

mysteriously, as Mademoiselle Galard says, is gone away just as

mysteriously."

After hearing this narrative, Mademoiselle de Watteville fell into a

brooding and absent mood, which everybody could see. It is useless to

say anything of the commotion that arose in Besancon on the

disappearance of Monsieur Savaron. It was understood that the Prefect

had obliged him with the greatest readiness by giving him at once a

passport across the frontier, for he was thus quit of his only

opponent. Next day Monsieur de Chavoncourt was carried to the top by a

majority of a hundred and forty votes.

"Jack is gone by the way he came," said an elector on hearing of

Albert Savaron's flight.

This event lent weight to the prevailing prejudice at Besancon against

strangers; indeed, two years previously they had received confirmation

from the affair of the Republican newspaper. Ten days later Albert de

Savarus was never spoken of again. Only three persons--Girardet the

attorney, the Vicar-General, and Rosalie--were seriously affected by

his disappearance. Girardet knew that the white-haired stranger was

Prince Soderini, for he had seen his card, and he told the Vicar-

General; but Rosalie, better informed than either of them, had known

for three months past that the Duc d'Argaiolo was dead.