“Mademoiselle,” he said; “I am very guilty towards you; but if all the wrongs I have done you are not wholly reparable, there are some that I can expiate. My wife and I have made a vow to make over to you in absolute possession our estate at Rouvre in case our son recovers, and also in case we have the dreadful sorrow of losing him.”
He burst into tears as he said the last words.
“I can assure you, my dear Ursula,” said the abbe, “that you can and that you ought to accept a part of this gift.”
“Will you forgive me?” said Minoret, humbly kneeling before the astonished girl. “The operation is about to be performed by the first surgeon of the Hotel-Dieu; but I do not trust to human science, I rely only on the power of God. If you will forgive us, if you ask God to restore our son to us, he will have strength to bear the agony and we shall have the joy of saving him.”
“Let us go to the church!” cried Ursula, rising.
But as she gained her feet, a piercing cry came from her lips, and she fell backward fainting. When her senses returned, she saw her friends—but not Minoret who had rushed for a doctor—looking at her with anxious eyes, seeking an explanation. As she gave it, terror filled their hearts.
“I saw my godfather standing in the doorway,” she said, “and he signed to me that there was no hope.”
The day after the operation Desire died,—carried off by the fever and the shock to the system that succeed operations of this nature. Madame Minoret, whose heart had no other tender feeling than maternity, became insane after the burial of her son, and was taken by her husband to the establishment of Doctor Blanche, where she died in 1841.
Three months after these events, in January, 1837, Ursula married Savinien with Madame de Portenduere’s consent. Minoret took part in the marriage contract and insisted on giving Mademoiselle Mirouet his estate at Rouvre and an income of twenty-four thousand francs from the Funds; keeping for himself only his uncle’s house and ten thousand francs a year. He has become the most charitable of men, and the most religious; he is churchwarden of the parish, and has made himself the providence of the unfortunate.
“The poor take the place of my son,” he said.