ered
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.

The baroness dared not say more. Her son's answer seemed to her more
indicative of madness than his silence of grief. She saw no hope, no
light in the darkness that surrounded them.

The baron's last hours and death had prevented the rector from bringing
Mademoiselle des Touches to Calyste, as he seemed bent on doing, for
reasons which he did not reveal. But on this day, whi