XVI

SICKNESS UNTO DEATH

For several days Calyste went regularly to Les Touches.  He paced round and round the lawn, where he had sometimes walked with Beatrix on his arm.  He often went to Croisic to stand upon that fateful rock, or lie for hours in the bush of box; for, by studying the footholds on the sides of the fissure, he had found a means of getting up and down.

These solitary trips, his silence, his gravity, made his mother very anxious.  After about two weeks, during which time this conduct, like that of a caged animal, lasted, this poor lover, caged in his despair, ceased to cross the bay; he had scarcely strength to drag himself along the road from Guerande to the spot where he had seen Beatrix watching from her window.  The family, delighted at the departure of “those Parisians,” to use a term of the provinces, saw nothing fatal or diseased about the lad.  The two old maids and the rector, pursuing their scheme, had kept Charlotte de Kergarouet, who nightly played off her little coquetries on Calyste, obtaining in return nothing better than advice in playing mouche.  During these long evenings, Calyste sat between his mother and the little Breton girl, observed by the rector and Charlotte’s aunt, who discussed his greater or less depression as they walked home together.  Their simple minds mistook the lethargic indifference of the hapless youth for submission to their plans.  One evening when Calyste, wearied out, went off suddenly to bed, the players dropped their cards upon the table and looked at each other as the young man closed the door of his chamber.  One and all had listened to the sound of his receding steps with anxiety.

“Something is the matter with Calyste,” said the baroness, wiping her eyes.

“Nothing is the matter,” replied Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel; “but you should marry him at once.”

“Do you believe that marriage would divert his mind?” asked the chevalier.

Charlotte looked reprovingly at Monsieur du Halga, whom she now began to think ill-mannered, depraved, immoral, without religion, and very ridiculous about his dog,—­opinions which her aunt, defending the old sailor, combated.

“I shall lecture Calyste to-morrow morning,” said the baron, whom the others had thought asleep.  “I do not wish to go out of this world without seeing my grandson, a little pink and white Guenic with a Breton cap on his head.”

“Calyste doesn’t say a word,” said old Zephirine, “and there’s no making out what’s the matter with him.  He doesn’t eat; I don’t see what he lives on.  If he gets his meals at Les Touches, the devil’s kitchen doesn’t nourish him.”

“He is in love,” said the chevalier, risking that opinion very timidly.

“Come, come, old gray-beard, you’ve forgotten to put in your stake!” cried Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel.  “When you begin to think of your young days you forget everything.”

“Come to breakfast to-morrow,” said old Zephirine to her friend Jacqueline; “my brother will have had a talk with his son, and we can settle the matter finally.  One nail, you know, drives out another.”