garden by the postern-gate and fled to Les Touches, where he stayed
near Camille till past midnight. On returning home, at one in the
morning, he found his mother awaiting him with her worsted-work. He
entered softly, clasped her hand in his, and said,--

"Is Charlotte gone?"

"She goes to-morrow, with her aunt, in despair, both of them,"
answered the baroness. "Come to Ireland with me, my Calyste."

"Many a time I have thought of flying there--"

"Ah!" cried the baroness.

"With Beatrix," he added.

Some days after Charlotte's departure, Calyste joined the Chevalier du
Halga in his daily promenade on the mall with his little dog. They sat
down in the sunshine on a bench, where the young man's eyes could
wander from the vanes of Les Touches to the rocks of Croisic, against
which the waves were playing and dashing their white foam. Calyste was
thin and pale; his strength was diminishing, and he was conscious at
times of little shudders at regular intervals, denoting fever. His
eyes, surrounded by dark circles, had that singular brilliancy which a
fixed idea gives to the eyes of hermits and solitary souls, or the
ardor of contest to those of the strong fighters of our present
civilization. The chevalier was the only person with whom he could
exchange a few ideas. He had divined in that old man an apostle of his
own religion; he recognized in his soul the vestiges of an eternal
love.