fault towards you except of having been
too faithful in my duty to my husband, who is your brother."

Then seeing that it was vain to continue imploring the abbe, whose looks
and gestures spoke a mind made up, she turned towards the chevalier.

"And you too, brother," said she, "oh, God, God! you, too! Oh, have
pity on me, in the name of Heaven!"

But he, stamping his foot and pressing the point of his sword to her
bosom, answered--

"Enough, madam, enough; take your choice without delay; for if you do not
take it, we will take it for you."

The marquise turned once again to the abbe, and her forehead struck the
muzzle of the pistol. Then she saw that she must die indeed, and
choosing of the three forms of death that which seemed to her the least
terrible, "Give me the poison, then," said she, "and may God forgive you
my death!"

With these words she took the glass, but the thick black liquid of which
it was full aroused such repulsion that she would have attempted a last
appeal; but a horrible imprecation from the abbe and a threatening
movement from his brother took from her the very last gleam of hope. She
put the glass to her lips, and murmuring once more, "God! Saviour! have
pity on me!" she swallowed the contents.

As she did so a few drops of the liquid fell upon her breast, and
instantly burned her skin like live coals; indeed, this infernal draught
was composed of arsenic and sublimate infused in aqua-fortis; then,
thinking that no more would be required of her, she dropped the glass.

The marquise was mistaken: the abbe picked it up, and observing that all
the sediment had remained at the bottom, he gathered together on a silver
bodkin all that had coagulated on the sides of the glass and all that had
sunk to the bottom, and presenting this ball, which was about the size of
a nut, to the marquise, on the end of the bodkin, he said, "Come, madame,
you must swallow the holy-water sprinkler."

The marquise opened her lips, with resignation; but instead of doing as
the abbe commanded, she kept this remainder of the poison in her mouth,
threw herself on the bed with a scream, and clasping the pillows, in her
pain, she put out the poison between the sheets, unperceived by her
assassins; and then turning back to them, folded her hands in entreaty
and said, "In the name of God, since you have killed my body, at least do
not destroy my soul, but send me a confessor."

Cruel though the abbe and the chev