“Did she love you?” said Calyste.
“Passionately,” replied the chevalier, with a fervency not usual with him.
“You were happy?”
“Until her death; she died at the age of forty-nine, during the emigration, at St. Petersburg, the climate of which killed her. She must be very cold in her coffin. I have often thought of going there to fetch her, and lay her in our dear Brittany, near to me! But she lies in my heart.”
The chevalier brushed away his tears. Calyste took his hand and pressed it.
“I care for this little dog more than for life itself,” said the old man, pointing to Thisbe. “The little darling is precisely like the one she held on her knees and stroked with her beautiful hands. I never look at Thisbe but what I see the hands of Madame l’Amirale.”
“Did you see Madame de Rochefide?” asked Calyste.
“No,” replied the chevalier. “It is sixty-eight years since I have looked at any woman with attention—except your mother, who has something of Madame l’Amirale’s complexion.”
Three days later, the chevalier said to Calyste, on the mall,—
“My child, I have a hundred and forty louis laid by. When you know where Madame de Rochefide is, come and get them and follow her.”