His father had kept his promise to that loved son in all things, nor had the Sieur d'Argenson failed of his plighted faith. The autumn of that year, the spring of which saw Kerguelen die in unutterable agony, saw Raoul de Douarnez the contracted and affianced husband of the lovely and beloved Melanie. All that was wanted now to render them actually man and wife, to create between them that bond which, alone of mortal ties, man cannot sunder, was the ministration of the church's holiest rite, and that, in wise consideration of their tender years, was postponed until the termination of the third summer. During the interval it was decided that Raoul, as was the custom of the world in those days, especially among the nobility, and most especially among the nobility of France, should bear arms in active service, and see something of the world abroad, before settling down into the easier duties of domestic life. The family of St. Renan, since the days of that ancestor who has been already mentioned as having sojourned in Pondicherry, had never ceased to maintain some relations with the East Indian possessions of France, and a relation of the house in no very remote degree was at this time military governor of the French East Indias, which were then, previous to the unexampled growth of the British empire in the East, important, flourishing, and full of future promise. Thither, then, it was determined that Raoul should go in search of adventures, if not of fortune, in the spring following the signature of his marriage contract with the young demoiselle d'Argenson. And, consequently, after a winter passed in quiet domestic happiness on the noble estates, whereon the gentry of Britanny were wont to reside in almost patriarchal state--a winter, every day of which the young lovers spent in company, and at every eve of which they separated more in love than they were at meeting in the morning--Raoul set sail in a fine frigate, carrying several companies of the line, invested with the rank of ensign, and proud to bear the colors of his king, for the shores of the still half fabulous oriental world.