Anne haughtily refused to listen to these arguments. In spite of her tender years, her will was indomitable, and her mind clear as to what her actions should be. "Rather," she replied at length to her discomfited council, "than be found wanting in the honour and duty I owe to the King of the Romans, whom I look upon as my husband, I will set forth to join him, since he finds it impossible to come hither to fetch me." Such a reply was decisive, and Dunois was fain to ride back chagrined and discomfited, but not yet baffled, to give Anne’s answer of defiance to her royal wooer. So also seemed to terminate the vague hopes to which Gwennola de Mereac had clung during those summer days—days which were bringing, alas! fresh sorrows to the lonely maiden of the old Breton château. For, scarce two months after her lover’s departure, a fall from his horse during a boar hunt had left her to mourn a father who had ever been tender and loving to his daughter, although for the past few weeks somewhat sterner than his wont at her—to him—obstinate refusal to listen to the command he laid on her to accept the hand—if not the heart—of the young Comte de Laferrière, a betrothal which might indeed have been forced upon her had not death intervened to save her from an unwelcome lover, at the same time that he deprived her of a tenderly loved parent. The mourning of those days was long, and sufficiently trying even for those whose grief was the most sincere; etiquette demanding that a daughter should retire to bed for six weeks in a funereally draped chamber, at most only being permitted to rise and sit upon a couch, also hung with trappings of woe.