ge.

This movement was so unexpected and so frightful that Mme. Blanche
recoiled.

"The Marquise de Sairmeuse," faltered Marie-Anne. "You, Blanche--here!"

And her suffering, explained by the presence of this young girl who once
had been her friend, but who was now her bitterest enemy, she exclaimed:

"You are my murderer!"

Blanche de Courtornieu's was one of those iron natures that break, but
never bend.

Since she had been discovered, nothing in the world would induce her to
deny her guilt.

She advanced resolutely, and in a firm voice:

"Yes," she said, "I have taken my revenge. Do you think I did not suffer
that evening when you sent your brother to take away my newly wedded
husband, upon whose face I have not gazed since?"

"Your husband! I sent to take him away! I do not understand you."

"Do you then dare to deny that you are not Martial's mistress!"

"The Marquis de Sairmeuse! I saw him yesterday for the first time since
Baron d'Escorval's escape."

The effort which she had made to rise and to speak had exhausted her
strength. She fell back in the armchair.

But Blanche was pitiless.

"You have not seen Martial! Tell me, then, who gave you this costly
furniture, these silken hangings, all the luxury that surrounds you?"

"Chanlouineau."

Blanche shrugged her shoulders.

"So be it," she said, with an ironical smile, "but is it Chanlouineau
for whom you are waiting this evening? Is it for Chanlouineau you have
warmed these slippers and laid this table? Was it Chanlouineau who sent
his clothing by a peasant named Poignot? You see that I know all----"

But her victim was silent.

"For whom are you waiting?" she insisted. "Answer!"

"I cannot!"

"You know that it is your lover! wretched woman--my husband, Martial!"

Marie-Anne was considering the situation as well as her intolerable
sufferings and troubled mind would permit.

Could she tell what guests she was expecting?

To name Baron d'Escorval to Blanche, would it not ruin and betray him?
They hoped for a safe-conduct, a revision of judgment, but he was none
the less under sentence of death, executory in twenty-four hours.

"So you refuse to tell me whom you expect here in an hour--at midnight."

"I refuse."

But a sudden impulse took possession of the sufferer's mind.

Though the slightest movement caused her intolerable agony, she tore
open her dress and drew from her bosom a folded paper.

"I am not the mistress of the Marq