Jean Lacheneur was in Russia at that epoch. The excitement subsided;
the Hotel de Sairmeuse was not seriously threatened. Still Martial
realized that it would be better for him to go away for a while, and
allow people to forget him.

He did not ask the duchess to accompany him.

"The fault has been mine entirely," he said to her, "and to make you
suffer for it by condemning you to exile would be unjust. Remain here; I
think it will be much better for you to remain here."

She did not offer to go with him. It would have been a pleasure to her,
but she dared not leave Paris. She knew that she must remain in order
to insure the silence of her persecutors. Both times she had left Paris
before, all came near being discovered, and yet she had Aunt Medea,
then, to take her place.

Martial went away, accompanied only by his devoted servant, Otto.
In intelligence, this man was decidedly superior to his position; he
possessed an independent fortune, and he had a hundred reasons--one, by
the way, was a very pretty one--for desiring to remain in Paris; but his
master was in trouble, and he did not hesitate.

For four years the Duc de Sairmeuse wandered over Europe, ever
accompanied by his _ennui_ and his dejection, and chafing beneath the
burden of a life no longer animated by interest or sustained by hope.

He remained awhile in London, then he went to Vienna, afterward to
Venice. One day he was seized by an irresistible desire to see Paris
again, and he returned.

It was not a very prudent step, perhaps. His bitterest enemies--personal
enemies, whom he had mortally offended and persecuted--were in power;
but he did not hesitate. Besides, how could they injure him, since he
had no favors to ask, no cravings of ambition to satisfy?

The exile which had weighed so heavily upon him, the sorrow, the
disappointments and loneliness he had endured had softened his nature
and inclined his heart to tenderness; and he returned firmly resolved to
overcome his aversion to his wife, and seek a reconciliation.

"Old age is approaching," he thought. "If I have not a beloved wife at
my fireside, I may at least have a friend."

His manner toward her, on his return, astonished Mme. Blanche. She
almost believed she saw again the Martial of the little blue salon at
Courtornieu; but the realization of her cherished dream was now only
another torture added to all the others.

Martial was striving to carry his plan into execution, when the