The doctor, who had been watching them from his window as he dressed, soon came down.

Without telling the viscount everything, he did say that, in case Madame de Portenduere consented to his marriage with Ursula, the fortune of his godchild would make his naval pay superfluous.
"Alas!" said Savinien.

"It will take a great deal of time to overcome my mother's opposition.

Before I left her to enter the navy she was placed between two alternatives,--either to consent to my marrying Ursula or else to see me only from time to time and to know me exposed to the dangers of the profession; and you see she chose to let me go." "But, Savinien, we shall be together," said Ursula, taking his hand and shaking it with a sort of impatience.
To see each other and not to part,--that was the all of love to her; she saw nothing beyond it; and her pretty gesture and the petulant tone of her voice expressed such innocence that Savinien and the doctor were both moved by it.

The resignation was written and despatched, and Ursula's fete received full glory from the presence of her betrothed.
A few months later, towards the month of May, the home-life of the doctor's household had resumed the quite tenor of its way but with one welcome visitor the more.