Calyste obeyed his father and went where he was told, from forest to forest, visiting friends and acquaintances in the neighboring chateaus.  But the youth had no spirit or gaiety; nothing brought a smile to his face; his livid and contracted features betrayed an utterly passive being.  The baron, worn out at last by fatigue consequent on this spasm of exertion, was forced to return home, bringing Calyste in a state of exhaustion almost equal to his own.  For several days after their return both father and son were so dangerously ill that the family were forced to send, at the request of the Guerande physician himself, for two of the best doctors in Nantes.

The baron had received a fatal shock on realizing the change now so visible in Calyste.  With that lucidity of mind which nature gives to the dying, he trembled at the thought that his race was about to perish.  He said no word, but he clasped his hands and prayed to God as he sat in his chair, from which his weakness now prevented him from rising.  The father’s face was turned toward the bed where the son lay, and he looked at him almost incessantly.  At the least motion Calyste made, a singular commotion stirred within him, as if the flame of his own life were flickering.  The baroness no longer left the room where Zephirine sat knitting in the chimney-corner in horrible uneasiness.  Demands were made upon the old woman for wood, father and son both suffering from the cold, and for supplies and provisions, so that, finally, not being agile enough to supply these wants, she had given her precious keys to Mariotte.  But she insisted on knowing everything; she questioned Mariotte and her sister-in-law incessantly, asking in a low voice to be told, over and over again, the state of her brother and nephew.  One night, when father and son were dozing, Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel told her that she must resign herself to the death of her brother, whose pallid face was now the color of wax.  The old woman dropped her knitting, fumbled in her pocket for a while, and at length drew out an old chaplet of black wood, on which she began to pray with a fervor which gave to her old and withered face a splendor so vigorous that the other old woman imitated her friend, and then all present, on a sign from the rector, joining in the spiritual uplifting of Mademoiselle de Guenic.

“Alas!  I prayed to God,” said the baroness, remembering her prayer after reading the fatal letter written by Calyste, “and he did not hear me.”

“Perhaps it would be well,” said the rector, “if we begged Mademoiselle des Touches to come and see Calyste.”

“She!” cried old Zephirine, “the author of all our misery! she who has turned him from his family, who has taken him from us, led him to read impious books, taught him an heretical language!  Let her be accursed, and may God never pardon her!  She has destroyed the du Guenics!”

“She may perhaps restore them,” said the rector, in a gentle voice.  “Mademoiselle des Touches is a saintly woman; I am her surety for that.  She has none but good intentions to Calyste.  May she only be enabled to carry them out.”