Ursula

through the head. The day
  the latter was killed he was to have been made a marshal of
  France. About the moment when the marquis expired the Duc de
  Montmorency, who was sleeping in his tent, was awakened by a voice
  like that of the marquis bidding him farewell. The affection he
  felt for a friend so near made him attribute the illusion of this
  dream to the force of his own imagination; and owing to the
  fatigues of the night, which he had spent, according to his
  custom, in the trenches, he fell asleep once more without any
  sense of dread. But the same voice disturbed him again, and the
  phantom obliged him to wake up and listen to the same words it had
  said as it first passed. The duke then recollected that he had
  heard the philosopher Pitrat discourse on the possibility of the
  separation of the soul from the body, and that he and the marquis
  had agreed that the first who died should bid adieu to the other.
  On which, not being able to restrain his fears as to the truth of
  this warning, he sent a servant to the marquis's quarters, which
  were distant from him. But before the man could get back, the king
  sent to inform the duke, by persons fitted to console him, of the
  great loss he had sustained.

  "I leave learned men to discuss the cause of this event, which I
  have frequently heard the Duc de Montmorency relate: I think that
  the truth and singularity of the fact itself ought to be recorded
  and preserved."
    "If all this is so," said Ursula, "what ought I do do?"
    "My child," said the abbe, "it concerns matters so important, and which may prove so profitable to you, that you ought to keep absolutely silent about it. Now that you have confided to me the secret of these apparitions perhaps they may not return. Besides, you are now strong enough to come to church; well, then, come to-morrow and thank God and pray to him for the repose of your godfather's soul. Feel quite sure that you have entrusted your secret to prudent hands."
    "If you knew how afraid I am to go to sleep,—what glances my godfather gives me! The last time he caught hold of my dress—I awoke with my face all covered with tears."
    "Be at peace; he will not come again," said the priest.
    Without losing a moment the Abbe Chaperon went straight to Minoret and asked for a few moments interview in the Chinese pagoda, requesting that they might be entirely alone.
    "Can any one hear us?" he asked.
    "No one," replied Minoret.
    "Monsieur, my character must be known to you," said the abbe, fastening a gentle but attentive look on Minoret's face. "I have to speak to you of serious and extraordinary matters, which concern you, and about which you may be sure that I shall keep the profoundest secrecy; but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than give you this information. While your uncle lived, there stood there," said the priest, pointing to a certain spot in the room, "a small buffet made by Boule, with a marble top" (Minoret turned livid), "and beneath the marble your uncle placed a letter for Ursula—" The abbe then went on to relate, without omitting the smallest circumstance, Minoret's conduct to Minoret himself. When the last post master heard the detail of the two matches refusing to light he felt his hair begin to writhe on his skull.
    "Who invented such nonsense?" he said, in a strangled voice, when the tale ended.
    "The dead man himself."
    This answer made Minoret tremble, for he himself had dreamed of the doctor.
    "God is very good, Monsieur l'abbe, to do miracles for me," he said, danger inspiring him to make the sole jest of his life.
    "All that God does is natural," replied the priest.
    "Your phantoms don't frighten me," said the colossus, recovering his coolness.
    "I did not come to frighten you, for I shall never speak of this to any one in the world," said the abbe. "You alone know the truth. The matter is between you and God."
    "Come now, Monsieur l'abbe, do you really think me capable of such a horrible abuse of confidence?"
    "I believe only in crimes which are confessed to me, and of which the sinner repents," said the priest, in an apostolic tone.
    "Crime?" cried Minoret.
    "A crime frightful in its consequences."
    "What consequences?"
    "In the fact that it escapes human justice. The crimes which are not expiated here below will be punished in another world. God himself avenges innocence."
    "Do you think God concerns himself with such trifles?"
    "If he did not see the worlds