r by the arm, led her through the stables, opened a door for her,
and the marquise found herself in the street. Two women were passing;
the groom put her into their hands, without being able to explain to
them what he did not know himself. As for the marquise, she seemed able
to say nothing beyond these words: "Save me! I am poisoned! In the name
of Heaven, save me!"

All at once she escaped from their hands and began to run like a mad
woman; she had seen, twenty steps away, on the threshold of the door by
which she had come, her two murderers in pursuit of her.

Then they rushed after her; she shrieking that she was poisoned, they
shrieking that she was mad; and all this happening amid a crowd which,
not knowing what part to take, divided and made way for the victim and
the murderers. Terror gave the marquise superhuman strength: the woman
who was accustomed to walk in silken shoes upon velvet carpets, ran with
bare and bleeding feet over stocks and stones, vainly asking help,
which none gave her; for, indeed, seeing her thus, in mad flight, in
a nightdress, with flying hair, her only garment a tattered silk
petticoat, it was difficult not to--think that this woman was, as her
brothers-in-law said, mad.

At last the chevalier came up with her, stopped her, dragged her, in
spite of her screams, into the nearest house, and closed the door behind
them, while the abbe, standing at the threshold with a pistol in
his hand, threatened to blow out the brains of any person who should
approach.

The house into which the chevalier and the marquise had gone belonged
to one M. Desprats, who at the moment was from home, and whose wife was
entertaining several of her friends. The marquise and the chevalier,
still struggling together, entered the room where the company was
assembled: as among the ladies present were several who also visited the
marquise, they immediately arose, in the greatest amazement, to give her
the assistance that she implored; but the chevalier hastily pushed
them aside, repeating that the marquise was mad. To this reiterated
accusation--to which, indeed, appearances lent only too great a
probability--the marquise replied by showing her burnt neck and her
blackened lips, and wringing her hands in pain, cried out that she was
poisoned, that she was going to die, and begged urgently for milk, or at
least for water. Then the wife of a Protestant minister, whose name was
Madame Brunel, slipped into her hand a bo