"Whoever it is will know I am dying," said Ursula; "and will cease to
trouble me."
The abbe, Bongrand, and Savinien were lost in conjectures and
suspicions. Together with Tiennette, La Bougival, and two persons on
whom the abbe could rely, they kept the closest watch and were on
their guard night and day for a week; but no indiscretion could betray
Goupil, whose machinations were known to himself only. There were no
more serenades and no more letters, and little by little the watch
relaxed. Bongrand thought the author of the wrong was frightened;
Savinien believed that the procureur du roi to whom he had sent the
letters received by Ursula and himself and his mother, had taken steps
to put an end to the persecution.
The armistice was not of long duration, however. When the doctor had
checked the nervous fever from which poor Ursula was suffering, and
just as she was recovering her courage, a rope-ladder was found, early
one morning in July, attached to her window. The postilion of the
mail-post declared that as he drove past the house in the middle of
the night a small man was in the act of coming down the ladder, and
though he tried to pull up, his horses, being startled, carried him
down the hill so fast that he was out of Nemours before he stopped
them.
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