On seeing Marie-Anne he sprang up, as pale and agitated as if the door
had given passage to a spectre.

"You!" he stammered.

But he quickly mastered his emotion, and in a second his quick mind
revolved all the possibilities that might have produced this visit:

"Lacheneur has been arrested!" he exclaimed, "and you, wishing to save
him from the fate which the military commission will pronounce upon him,
have thought of me. Thank you, dearest Marie-Anne, thank you for your
confidence. I will not abuse it. Let your heart be reassured. We will
save your father, I promise you--I swear it. How, I do not yet know. But
what does that matter? It is enough that he shall be saved. I will have
it so!"

His voice betrayed the intense passion and joy that was surging in his
heart.

"My father has not been arrested," said Marie-Anne, coldly.

"Then," said Martial, with some hesitation, "then it is Jean who is a
prisoner."

"My brother is in safety. If he survives his wounds he will escape all
attempts at capture."

From white the Marquis de Sairmeuse had turned as red as fire. By
Marie-Anne's manner he saw that she knew of the duel. He made no attempt
to deny it; but he tried to excuse himself.

"It was Jean who challenged me," said he; "I tried to avoid it. I only
defended my own life in fair combat, and with equal weapons----"

Marie-Anne interrupted him.

"I reproach you for nothing, Monsieur le Marquis," she said, quietly.

"Ah! Marie-Anne, I am more severe than you. Jean was right to challenge
me. I deserved his anger. He knew the baseness of which I had been
guilty; but you--you were ignorant of it. Oh! Marie-Anne, if I wronged
you in thought it was because I did not know you. Now I know that you,
above all others, are pure and chaste."

He tried to take her hands; she repulsed him with horror; and broke into
a fit of passionate sobbing.

Of all the blows she had received this last was most terrible and
overwhelming.

What humiliation and shame--! Now, indeed, was her cup of sorrow filled
to overflowing. "Chaste and pure!" he had said. Oh, bitter mockery!

But Martial misunderstood the meaning of the poor girl's gesture.

"Oh! I comprehend your indignation," he resumed, with growing eagerness.
"But if I have injured you even in thought, I now offer you reparation.
I have been a fool--a miserable fool--for I love you; I love, and can
love you only. I am the Marquis de Sairmeuse. I am the possessor of
millio