The chevalier drew the rouleaux from his pocket and showed them.  Mariotte, seeing such wealth, sent Gasselin to lock the doors.

“Gold will not give him health,” said the baroness, weeping.

“But it can take him to Paris, where he can find her.  Come, Calyste.”

“Yes,” cried Calyste, springing up, “I will go.”

“He will live,” said the baron, in a shaking voice; “and I can die—­send for the rector!”

The words cast terror on all present.  Calyste, seeing the mortal paleness on his father’s face, for the old man was exhausted by the cruel emotions of the scene, came to his father’s side.  The rector, after hearing the report of the doctors, had gone to Mademoiselle des Touches, intending to bring her back with him to Calyste, for in proportion as the worthy man had formerly detested her, he now admired her, and protected her as a shepherd protects the most precious of his flock.

When the news of the baron’s approaching end became known in Guerande, a crowd gathered in the street and lane; the peasants, the paludiers, and the servants knelt in the court-yard while the rector administered the last sacraments to the old Breton warrior.  The whole town was agitated by the news that the father was dying beside his half-dying son.  The probable extinction of this old Breton race was felt to be a public calamity.

The solemn ceremony affected Calyste deeply.  His filial sorrow silenced for a moment the anguish of his love.  During the last hour of the glorious old defender of the monarchy, he knelt beside him, watching the coming on of death.  The old man died in his chair in presence of the assembled family.

“I die faithful to God and his religion,” he said.  “My God! as the reward of my efforts grant that Calyste may live!”

“I shall live, father; and I will obey you,” said the young man.

“If you wish to make my death as happy as Fanny has made my life, swear to me to marry.”

“I promise it, father.”

It was a touching sight to see Calyste, or rather his shadow, leaning on the arm of the old Chevalier du Halga—­a spectre leading a shade —­and following the baron’s coffin as chief mourner.  The church and the little square were crowded with the country people coming in to the funeral from a circuit of thirty miles.

But the baroness and Zephirine soon saw that, in spite of his intention to obey his father’s wishes, Calyste was falling back into a condition of fatal stupor.  On the day when the family put on their mourning, the baroness took her son to a bench in the garden and questioned him closely.  Calyste answered gently and submissively, but his answers only proved to her the despair of his soul.

“Mother,” he said, “there is no life in me.  What I eat does not feed me; the air that enters my lungs does not refresh me; the sun feels cold; it seems to you to light that front of the house, and show you the old carvings bathed in its beams, but to me it is all a blur, a mist.  If Beatrix were here, it would be dazzling.  There is but one only thing left in this world that keeps its shape and color to my eyes,—­this flower, this foliage,” he added, drawing from his breast the withered bunch the marquise had given him at Croisic.