, tremble in his shoes.
"Are you not going to wait for me?" he cried, observing that Goupil
was going away on foot.
"You'll find me on our path, never fear, papa Minoret," replied
Goupil, athirst for vengeance and resolved to know the meaning of the
zigzags of Minoret's strange conduct.
Since the day when the last vile calumny had sullied her life Ursula,
a prey to one of those inexplicable maladies the seat of which is in
the soul, seemed to be rapidly nearing death. She was deathly pale,
speaking only at rare intervals and then in slow and feeble words;
everything about her, her glance of gentle indifference, even the
expression of her forehead, all revealed the presence of some
consuming thought. She was thinking how the ideal wreath of chastity,
with which throughout all ages the Peoples crowned their virgins, had
fallen from her brow. She heard in the void and in the silence the
dishonoring words, the malicious comments, the laughter of the little
town. The trial was too heavy, her innocence was too delicate to allow
her to survive the murderous blow. She complained no more; a sorrowful
smile was on her lips; her eyes appealed to heaven, to the Sovereign
of angels, against man's injustice.
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