“Gone!” cried Hector, nearly fainting.

“She has left a farewell for you in this letter.”  Hector took the letter which the Duchess held to him, and grew deadly pale as he read these lines:—­

“Farewell, then!  ’Tis no longer Daphne who writes to you, but a broken-hearted girl, who is to devote her life to praying for the unhappy.  I retire from the world with resignation.  I make no complaint:  my two days’ dream of happiness is gone.  It was a delicious eclogue—­pure, sincere, and tender; but it is past—­Adieu!”

Hector kissed the letter, and turned to the Duchess.  “Have you a horse, madam?” he said.

“What would you do with it?”

“I would overtake Mademoiselle Deshoulieres.”

“You might overtake her, but you couldn’t turn her.”

“For mercy’s sake, madam, a horse!  Take pity on my misery.”

The Duchess ordered a horse to be saddled, for she had opposed Daphne’s design.  “Go,” she said, “and Heaven guide you both!”

He started at full gallop:  he overtook the carriage in half an hour.

“Daphne, you must go no further!” he said, holding out his hand to the melancholy girl.

“’Tis you!” cried Daphne, with a look of surprise and joy—­soon succeeded by deeper grief than ever.

“Yes, ’tis I!  I,” continued the youth, “who love you as my Daphne, my wife, for my father has listened at last to reason, and agrees to all.”

“But I also have listened to reason, and you know where I am going.  Leave me:  you are rich—­I am poor:  you love me to-day—­who can say if you will love me to-morrow?  We began a delightful dream, let us not spoil it by a bad ending.  Let our dream continue unbroken in its freshness and romance.  Our crooks are both broken; they have killed two of our sheep; they have cut down the willows in the meadow.  You perceive that our bright day is over.  The lady I saw yesterday should be your wife.  Marry her, then; and if ever, in your hours of happiness, you wander on the banks of the Lignon, my shade will appear to you.  But then it shall be with a smile!”

“Daphne!  Daphne!  I love you!  I will never leave you!  I will live or die with you!”

* * * * *

It was fifty years after that day, that one evening, during a brilliant supper in the Rue St. Dominique, Gentil Bernard, who was the life of the company, announced the death of an original, who had ordered a broken stick to be buried along with him.

“He is Monsieur de Langevy,” said Fontenelle.  “He was forced against his inclination to marry the dashing Clotilde de Langevy, who eloped so shamefully with one of the Mousquetaires.  M. de Langevy had been desperately attached to Bribri Deshoulieres, and this broken stick was a crook they had cut during their courtship on the banks of the Lignon.  The Last Shepherd is dead, gentlemen—­we must go to his funeral.”

“And what became of Bribri Deshoulieres?” asked a lady of the party.