“Let me know the day when she sets foot in this house, that I may get out of it,” cried the old woman passionately.  “She has killed both father and son.  Do you think I don’t hear death in Calyste’s voice? he is so feeble now that he has barely strength to whisper.”

It was at this moment that the three doctors arrived.  They plied Calyste with questions; but as for his father, the examination was short; they were surprised that he still lived on.  The Guerande doctor calmly told the baroness that as to Calyste, it would probably be best to take him to Paris and consult the most experienced physicians, for it would cost over a hundred louis to bring one down.

“People die of something, but not of love,” said Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel.

“Alas! whatever be the cause, Calyste is dying,” said the baroness.  “I see all the symptoms of consumption, that most horrible disease of my country, about him.”

“Calyste dying!” said the baron, opening his eyes, from which rolled two large tears which slowly made their way, delayed by wrinkles, along his cheeks,—­the only tears he had probably ever shed in his life.  Suddenly he rose to his feet, walked the few steps to his son’s bedside, took his hand, and looked earnestly at him.

“What is it you want, father?” said Calyste.

“That you should live!” cried the baron.

“I cannot live without Beatrix,” replied Calyste.

The old man dropped into a chair.

“Oh! where could we get a hundred louis to bring doctors from Paris?  There is still time,” cried the baroness.

“A hundred louis!” cried Zephirine; “will that save him?”

Without waiting for her sister-in-law’s reply, the old maid ran her hands through the placket-holes of her gown, unfastened the petticoat beneath it, which gave forth a heavy sound as it dropped to the floor.  She knew so well the places where she had sewn in her louis that she now ripped them out with the rapidity of magic.  The gold pieces rang as they fell, one by one, into her lap.  The old Pen-Hoel gazed at this performance in stupefied amazement.

“But they’ll see you!” she whispered in her friend’s ear.

“Thirty-seven,” answered Zephirine, continuing to count.

“Every one will know how much you have.”

“Forty-two.”

“Double louis! all new!  How did you get them, you who can’t see clearly?”

“I felt them.  Here’s one hundred and four louis,” cried Zephirine.  “Is that enough?”

“What is all this?” asked the Chevalier du Halga, who now came in, unable to understand the attitude of his old blind friend, holding out her petticoat which was full of gold coins.

Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel explained.

“I knew it,” said the chevalier, “and I have come to bring a hundred and forty louis which I have been holding at Calyste’s disposition, as he knows very well.”