The door yielded under the blows, and a dishevelled, haggard, ill-clothed man appeared.
“My father!” cried Gerande.
It was Master Zacharius.
“Where am I?” said he. “In eternity! Time is ended—the hours no longer strike—the hands have stopped!”
“Father!” returned Gerande, with so piteous an emotion that the old man seemed to return to the world of the living.
“Thou here, Gerande?” he cried; “and thou, Aubert? Ah, my dear betrothed ones, you are going to be married in our old church!”
“Father,” said Gerande, seizing him by the arm, “come home to Geneva,—come with us!”
The old man tore away from his daughter’s embrace and hurried towards the door, on the threshold of which the snow was falling in large flakes.
“Do not abandon your children!” cried Aubert.
“Why return,” replied the old man sadly, “to those places which my life has already quitted, and where a part of myself is for ever buried?”