“What became of the lady you were speaking of?”
“She retired to a convent, not three miles off, and is since dead. There was some mystery about the abbess, and she was supposed to be able to explain it. I believe she was pronounced ‘contumacious’ by the inquisition, and put into prison, where she died from the severity of her treatment.”
My heart smote me when I heard this. The poor girl had endured all this severity on my account, and was faithful even to the last. I fell into a reverie of most painful feelings. Cerise, too, whose fate I had before ascertained when I was at Toulouse—dear, dear Cerise!
“I tell you again, Huckaback; I wish to have no more of Cerise,” cried the pacha. “She is dead, and there’s an end of her.”
The information that I received made me doubtful how to proceed; I could easily prove my identity, but I had a degree of apprehension that I might be catechised in such a manner as to raise suspicions. At the same time without a sou in the world, I did not much like the idea of abandoning all claim to my father’s property. I had formerly dressed the peruke of an elderly gentleman who practised in the law, and with whom I was a great favourite. Although five years had elapsed since I first ran away from my father, I thought it very likely that he might be still alive. I resolved to call at his house. When I knocked and asked if he was at home, the girl who opened the door replied in the affirmative; and I was shown into the same little study, littered with papers, into which I formerly used to bring him his peruke.
“Your pleasure, sir?” inquired the old man, peering at me through his spectacles.
“I wish,” replied I, “to ask your opinion relative to a disputed succession.”
“What is the property?”