"I have something here," she added, striking her breast, "which is far more precious--" "What is it ?" said the post master, who with Massin at his heels now showed his brutal face.
"The remembrances of his virtues, of his life, of his words--an image of his celestial soul," she said, her eyes and face glowing as she raised her hand with a glorious gesture.
"And a key!" cried Massin, creeping up to her like a cat and seizing a key which fell from the bosom of her dress in her sudden movement.
"Yes," she said, blushing, "that is the key of his study; he sent me there at the moment he was dying." The two men glanced at each other with horrid smiles, and then at Monsieur Bongrand, with a meaning look of degrading suspicion.

Ursula who intercepted it, rose to her feet, pale as if the blood had left her body.

Her eyes sent forth the lightnings that perhaps can issue only at some cost of life, as she said in a choking voice:-- "Monsieur Bongrand, everything in this room is mine through the kindness of my godfather; they may have it all; I have nothing on me but the clothes I wear.

I shall leave the house and never return to it." She went to her godfather's room, and no entreaties could make her leave it,--the heirs, who now began to be slightly ashamed of their conduct, endeavoring to persuade her.

She requested Monsieur Bongrand to engage two rooms for her at the "Vieille Poste" inn until she could find some lodging in town where she could live with La Bougival.