Incredible as it appeared, she received, on the eve of her departure, a telegram from Paris.

At first she thought it a device of Viscount Gratian's to cover her elopement, but it was not possible for him to have imagined the appeal.

It was from her uncle, who, traveling in France, and intending to pay her a visit since she was married honorably, was stricken with a malady.

He awaited her at a hotel.

Even Von Sendlingen could not have drawn up this message too simple not to be genuine and too precise in the genealogical allusions not to be a Russian's and a Dobronowska's.
She regarded this cloak as the act of her "fate"-- the evil person's providence.