De Morville, reassured by the most tender protestations of Paula, who urged his immediate departure, had just requested one kiss on his forehead, when De Brévannes, deceived by the dusk, by Bertha's cloak, and particularly by his conviction that his wife was in the châlet, shot the princess. The next morning the shawl of Iris was found floating in one of the lakes. It may be remembered that De Morville had said to Paula that a solemn oath forced him to avoid every occasion of seeing her. This was another of the machinations of Iris. Jealous of this new attachment of her mistress, the gipsy girl had gone to Madame de Morville, and represented to her a fearful picture of the fierce and suspicious jealousy of the Prince de Hansfeld, who was, she asserted, capable of destroying M. de Morville in some murderous stratagem, if he any longer carried on his liaison with the princess. Madame de Morville, alarmed at the dangers which threatened her son, made him take an oath, without revealing to him the cause of her alarm, to think no more of Madame de Hansfeld unless she became a widow. De Morville, although this oath cost him dear, saw his adored mother so agitated, so supplicating, and her health so frail, that he felt a refusal would be a terrible, perchance a mortal blow. He yielded--promised. * * * * * Eighteen months after these events, Bertha Raimond, princess de Hansfeld, went with Arnold and the old engraver to Germany, where the three took up their permanent abode.