xtreme danger.

Then, when she heard this verdict, which had to be repeated to her,
and which her bright and lively complexion and brilliant eyes seemed to
contradict, the marquise turned all her thoughts towards holy things,
and thought only of dying like a saint after having already suffered
like a martyr. She consequently asked to receive the last sacrament, and
while it was being sent for, she repeated her apologies to her husband
and her forgiveness of his brothers, and this with a gentleness that,
joined to her beauty, made her whole personality appear angelic. When,
however, the priest bearing the viaticum entered, this expression
suddenly changed, and her face presented every token of the greatest
terror. She had just recognised in the priest who was bringing her the
last consolations of Heaven the infamous Perette, whom she could not
but regard as an accomplice of the abbe and the chevalier, since, after
having tried to hold her back, he had attempted to crush her beneath the
pitcher of water which he had thrown at her from the window, and since,
when he saw her escaping, he had run to warn her assassins and to set
them on her track. She recovered herself quickly, however, and seeing
that the priest, without any sign of remorse, was drawing near to her
bedside, she would not cause so great a scandal as would have been
caused by denouncing him at such a moment. Nevertheless, bending towards
him, she said, "Father, I hope that, remembering what has passed, and in
order to dispel fears that--I may justifiably entertain, you will make
no difficulty of partaking with me of the consecrated wafer; for I have
sometimes heard it said that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, while
remaining a token of salvation, has been known to be made a principle of
death."

The priest inclined his head as a sign of assent.

So the marquise communicated thus, taking a sacrament that she shared
with one of her murderers, as an evidence that she forgave this one like
the others and that she prayed God to forgive them as she herself did.

The following days passed without any apparent increase in her illness,
the fever by which she was consumed rather enhancing her beauties, and
imparting to her voice and gestures a vivacity which they had never had
before. Thus everybody had begun to recover hope, except herself, who,
feeling better than anyone else what was her true condition, never for a
moment allowed herself any illusion, and keep