With a bound M. d’Escorval reached his son’s chamber, looked at him and dashed out again, summoned a servant, and ordered him to gallop to Montaignac and bring a physician without a moment’s delay.

There was, indeed, a doctor at Sairmeuse, but he was the most stupid of men—­a former surgeon in the army, who had been dismissed for incompetency.  The peasants shunned him as they would the plague; and in case of sickness always sent for the cure.  M. d’Escorval followed their example, knowing that the physician from Montaignac could not arrive until nearly morning.

Abbe Midon had never frequented the medical schools, but since he had been a priest the poor so often asked advice of him that he applied himself to the study of medicine, and, aided by experience, he had acquired a knowledge of the art which would have won him a diploma from the faculty anywhere.

At whatever hour of the day or night parishioners came to ask his assistance, he was always ready—­his only answer:  “Let us go at once.”

And when the people of the neighborhood met him on the road with his little box of medicine slung over his shoulder, they took off their hats respectfully and stood aside to let him pass.  Those who did not respect the priest honored the man.

For M. d’Escorval, above all others, Abbe Midon would make haste.  The baron was his friend; and a terrible apprehension seized him when he saw Mme. d’Escorval at the gate watching for him.  By the way in which she rushed to meet him, he thought she was about to announce some irreparable misfortune.  But no—­she took his hand, and, without uttering a word, she led him to her son’s chamber.

The condition of the poor youth was really very critical; the abbe perceived this at a glance, but it was not hopeless.

“We will get him out of this,” he said, with a smile that reawakened hope.

And with the coolness of an old practitioner, he bled him freely, and ordered applications of ice to his head.

In a moment all the household were busied in fulfilling the cure’s orders.  He took advantage of the opportunity to draw the baron aside in the embrasure of a window.

“What has happened?” he asked.

“A disappointment in love,” M. d’Escorval replied, with a despairing gesture.  “Monsieur Lacheneur has refused the hand of his daughter, which I asked in behalf of my son.  Maurice was to have seen Marie-Anne to-day.  What passed between them I do not know.  The result you see.”

The baroness re-entered the room, and the two men said no more.  A truly funereal silence pervaded the apartment, broken only by the moans of Maurice.

His excitement instead of abating had increased in violence.  Delirium peopled his brain with phantoms; and the name of Marie-Anne, Martial de Sairmeuse and Chanlouineau dropped so incoherently from his lips that it was impossible to read his thoughts.