“I don’t see any horses,” said the maid, sitting on a trunk.

“And I don’t see any road,” said the footman.

“Horses have been here, though,” replied the woman, pointing to the proofs of their presence.  “Monsieur,” she said, addressing Calyste, “is this really the way to Guerande?”

“Yes,” he replied, “are you expecting some one to meet you?”

“We were told that they would fetch us from Les Touches.  If they don’t come,” she added to the footman, “I don’t know how Madame la marquise will manage to dress for dinner.  You had better go and find Mademoiselle des Touches.  Oh! what a land of savages!”

Calyste had a vague idea of having blundered.

“Is your mistress going to Les Touches?” he inquired.

“She is there; Mademoiselle came for her this morning at seven o’clock.  Ah! here come the horses.”

Calyste started toward Guerande with the lightness and agility of a chamois, doubling like a hare that he might not return upon his tracks or meet any of the servants of Les Touches.  He did, however, meet two of them on the narrow causeway of the marsh along which he went.

“Shall I go in, or shall I not?” he thought when the pines of Les Touches came in sight.  He was afraid; and continued his way rather sulkily to Guerande, where he finished his excursion on the mall and continued his reflections.

“She has no idea of my agitation,” he said to himself.

His capricious thoughts were so many grapnels which fastened his heart to the marquise.  He had known none of these mysterious terrors and joys in his intercourse with Camille.  Such vague emotions rise like poems in the untutored soul.  Warmed by the first fires of imagination, souls like his have been known to pass through all phases of preparation and to reach in silence and solitude the very heights of love, without having met the object of so many efforts.

Presently Calyste saw, coming toward him, the Chevalier du Halga and Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, who were walking together on the mall.  He heard them say his name, and he slipped aside out of sight, but not out of hearing.  The chevalier and the old maid, believing themselves alone, were talking aloud.

“If Charlotte de Kergarouet comes,” said the chevalier, “keep her four or five months.  How can you expect her to coquette with Calyste?  She is never here long enough to undertake it.  Whereas, if they see each other every day, those two children will fall in love, and you can marry them next winter.  If you say two words about it to Charlotte she’ll say four to Calyste, and a girl of sixteen can certainly carry off the prize from a woman of forty.”