sed courtyard; and the
marquise at first thought that in leaping from her room into this court
she had only changed her prison; but soon perceiving a light that
flickered from an upper window of ore of the stables, she ran thither,
and found a groom who was just going to bed.

"In the name of Heaven, my good man," said she to him, "save me! I am
poisoned! They want to kill me! Do not desert me, I entreat you! Have
pity on me, open this stable for me; let me get away! Let me escape!"

The groom did not understand much of what the marquise said to him; but
seeing a woman with disordered hair, half naked, asking help of him, he
took her by the arm, led her through the stables, opened a door for her,
and the marquise found herself in the street. Two women were passing;
the groom put her into their hands, without being able to explain to them
what he did not know himself. As for the marquise, she seemed able to
say nothing beyond these words: "Save me! I am poisoned! In the name of
Heaven, save me!"

All at once she escaped from their hands and began to run like a mad
woman; she had seen, twenty steps away, on the threshold of the door by
which she had come, her two murderers in pursuit of her.

Then they rushed after her; she shrieking that she was poisoned, they
shrieking that she was mad; and all this happening amid a crowd which,
not knowing what part to take, divided and made way for the victim and
the murderers. Terror gave the marquise superhuman strength: the woman
who was accustomed to walk in silken shoes upon velvet carpets, ran with
bare and bleeding feet over stocks and stones, vainly asking help, which
none gave her; for, indeed, seeing her thus, in mad flight, in a
nightdress, with flying hair, her only garment a tattered silk petticoat,
it was difficult not to--think that this woman was, as her
brothers-in-law said, mad.

At last the chevalier came up with her, stopped her, dragged her, in
spite of her screams, into the nearest house, and closed the door behind
them, while the abbe, standing at the threshold with a pistol in his
hand, threatened to blow out the brains of any person who should
approach.

The house into which the chevalier and the marquise had gone belonged to
one M. Desprats, who at the moment was from home, and whose wife was
entertaining several of her friends. The marquise and the chevalier,
still struggling together, entered the room where the company was
assembled: as amo