Doctor Dufour lived in one of these houses.
About a month had elapsed since the events we have just related.
Early in the month of November, on St. Hubert's Day,—St. Hubert, the reader may or may not recollect, is the hunter's patron saint,—the idlers of the little town had assembled on the mall about four o'clock in the afternoon to await the return of the young Marquis de Pont Brillant's hunting party from the neighbouring forest.
The aforesaid idlers were beginning to become impatient at the long delay, when a clumsy cabriolet, drawn by an old work-horse in a dilapidated harness, tied up here and there with strings, drove up to the doctor's door, and Frederick Bastien, stepping out of this extremely modest equipage, assisted his mother to alight.
The old horse, whose discretion and docility were established beyond all question, was left standing, with the lines upon his neck, close to the pavement in front of the doctor's house, which Madame Bastien and her son immediately entered.
An old servant woman ushered them into the parlour, which was on the second floor, with windows overlooking the mall.
"Can the doctor see me?" inquired Madame Bastien.
"I think so, though he is with one of his friends who has been here for a few days but who leaves for Nantes this evening. I will go and tell him that you are here, though, madame."
Envy, aided by jealousy,—the reader probably has not forgotten the praises so innocently lavished upon the young marquis by Madame Bastien,—had made frightful ravages in Frederick's heart during the past month, and the deterioration in his physical condition having been correspondingly great, one would scarcely have known him. His complexion was not only pale, but jaundiced and bilious, while his hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, which burned with a feverish light, and the bitter smile which was ever upon his lips, imparted an almost ferocious as well as unnatural expression to his face. His abrupt, nervous movements, and his curt, often impatient, voice, also made the contrast between the youth's past and present condition all the more striking.
Marie Bastien seemed utterly disheartened and discouraged, but the gentle melancholy of her face only made her remarkable beauty still more touching in its character.