a word, she led him to her son's chamber.

The condition of the poor youth was really very critical; the abbe
perceived this at a glance, but it was not hopeless.

"We will get him out of this," he said, with a smile that reawakened
hope.

And with the coolness of an old practitioner, he bled him freely, and
ordered applications of ice to his head.

In a moment all the household were busied in fulfilling the cure's
orders. He took advantage of the opportunity to draw the baron aside in
the embrasure of a window.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"A disappointment in love," M. d'Escorval replied, with a despairing
gesture. "Monsieur Lacheneur has refused the hand of his daughter, which
I asked in behalf of my son. Maurice was to have seen Marie-Anne to-day.
What passed between them I do not know. The result you see."

The baroness re-entered the room, and the two men said no more. A truly
funereal silence pervaded the apartment, broken only by the moans of
Maurice.

His excitement instead of abating had increased in violence. Delirium
peopled his brain with phantoms; and the name of Marie-Anne, Martial de
Sairmeuse and Chanlouineau dropped so incoherently from his lips that it
was impossible to read his thoughts.

How long that night seemed to M. d'Escorval and his wife, those only
know who have counted each second beside the sick-bed of some loved one.

Certainly their confidence in the companion in their vigil was great;
but he was not a regular physician like the other, the one whose coming
they awaited.

Just as the light of the morning made the candles turn pale, they heard
the furious gallop of a horse, and soon the doctor from Montaignac
entered.

He examined Maurice carefully, and, after a short conference with the
priest:

"_I_ see no immediate danger," he declared. "All that can be done
has been done. The malady must be allowed to take its course. I will
return."

He did return the next day and many days after, for it was not until a
week had passed that Maurice was declared out of danger.

Then he confided to his father all that had taken place in the grove
on the Reche. The slightest detail of the scene had engraved itself
indelibly upon his memory. When the recital was ended:

"Are you quite sure," asked his father, "that you correctly understood
Marie-Anne's reply? Did she tell you that if her father gave his consent
to your marriage, she would refuse hers?"

"Those were her very wor