When Abbe Midon and Martial de Sairmeuse held their conference, to discuss and to decide upon the arrangements for the Baron d’Escorval’s escape, a difficulty presented itself which threatened to break off the negotiation.
“Return my letter,” said Martial, “and I will save the baron.”
“Save the baron,” replied the abbe, “and your letter shall be returned.”
But Martial’s was one of those natures which become exasperated by the least shadow of suspicion.
The idea that anyone should suppose him influenced by threats, when in reality, he had yielded only to Marie-Anne’s tears, angered him beyond endurance.
“These are my last words, Monsieur,” he said, emphatically. “Restore to me, now, this instant, the letter which was obtained from me by Chanlouineau’s ruse, and I swear to you, by the honor of my name, that all which it is possible for any human being to do to save the baron, I will do. If you distrust my word, good-evening.”
The situation was desperate, the danger imminent, the time limited; Martial’s tone betrayed an inflexible determination.
The abbe could not hesitate. He drew the letter from his pocket and handing it to Martial:
“Here it is, Monsieur,” he said, solemnly, “remember that you have pledged the honor of your name.”
“I will remember it, Monsieur le Cure. Go and obtain the ropes.”
The abbe’s sorrow and amazement were intense, when, after the baron’s terrible fall, Maurice announced that the cord had been cut. And yet he could not make up his mind that Martial was guilty of the execrable act. It betrayed a depth of duplicity and hypocrisy which is rarely found in men under twenty-five years of age. But no one suspected his secret thoughts. It was with the most unalterablesang-froidthat he dressed the baron’s wounds and made arrangements for the flight. Not until he saw M. d’Escorval installed in Poignot’s house did he breathe freely.
The fact that the baron had been able to endure the journey, proved that in this poor maimed body remained a power of vitality for which the priest had not dared to hope.
Some way must now be discovered to procure the surgical instruments and the remedies which the condition of the wounded man demanded.
But where and how could he procure them?
The police kept a close watch over the physicians and druggists in Montaignac, in the hope of discovering the wounded conspirators through them.
But the cure, who had been for ten years physician and surgeon for the poor of his parish, had an almost complete set of surgical instruments and a well-filled medicine-chest.
“This evening,” said he, “I will obtain what is needful.”
When night came, he put on a long blue blouse, shaded his face by an immense slouch hat, and directed his steps toward Sairmeuse.
Not a light was visible through the windows of the presbytery; Bibiane, the old housekeeper, must have gone out to gossip with some of the neighbors.
The priest effected an entrance into the house, which had once been his, by forcing the lock of the door opening on the garden; he found the requisite articles, and retired without having been discovered.
That night the abbe hazarded a cruel but indispensable operation. His heart trembled, but not the hand that held the knife, although he had never before attempted so difficult a task.
“It is not upon my weak powers that I rely: I have placed my trust in One who is on High.”
His faith was rewarded. Three days later the wounded man, after quite a comfortable night, seemed to regain consciousness.
His first glance was for his devoted wife, who was seated by his bedside; his first word was for his son.
“Maurice?” he asked.
“Is in safety,” replied the abbe. “He must be on the way to Turin.”
M. d’Escorval’s lips moved as if he were murmuring a prayer; then, in a feeble voice:
“We owe you a debt of gratitude which we can never pay,” he murmured, “for I think I shall pull through.”
He did “pull through,” but not without terrible suffering, not without difficulties that made those around him tremble with anxiety. Jean Lacheneur, more fortunate, was on his feet by the end of the week.
Forty days had passed, when one evening—it was the 17th of April—while the abbe was reading a newspaper to the baron, the door gently opened and one of the Poignot boys put in his head, then quickly withdrew it.
The priest finished the paragraph, laid down the paper, and quietly went out.
“What is it?” he inquired of the young man.
“Ah! Monsieur, Monsieur Maurice, Mademoiselle Lacheneur and the old corporal have just arrived; they wish to come up.”
In three bounds the abbe descended the narrow staircase.
“Unfortunate creatures!” he exclaimed, addressing the three imprudent travellers, “what has induced you to return here?”
Then turning to Maurice:
“Is it not enough thatforyou, andthroughyou, your father has nearly died? Are you afraid he will not be recaptured, that you return here to set the enemies upon his track? Depart!”
The poor boy, quite overwhelmed, faltered his excuse. Uncertainty seemed to him worse than death; he had heard of M. Lacheneur’s execution; he had not reflected, he would go at once; he asked only to see his father and to embrace his mother.
The priest was inflexible.
“The slightest emotion might kill your father,” he declared; “and to tell your mother of your return, and of the dangers to which you have foolishly exposed yourself, would cause her untold tortures. Go at once. Cross the frontier again this very night.”
Jean Lacheneur, who had witnessed this scene, now approached.
“It is time for me to depart,” said he, “and I entreat you to care for my sister, the place for her is here, not upon the highways.”
The abbe deliberated for a moment, then he said, brusquely:
“So be it; but go at once; your name is not upon the proscribed list. You will not be pursued.”
Thus, suddenly separated from his wife, Maurice wished to confer with her, to give her some parting advice; but the abbe did not allow him an opportunity.
“Go, go at once,” he insisted. “Farewell!”
The good abbe was too hasty.
Just when Maurice stood sorely in need of wise counsel, he was thus delivered over to the influence of Jean Lacheneur’s furious hatred. As soon as they were outside:
“This,” exclaimed Jean, “is the work of the Sairmeuse and the Marquis de Courtornieu! I do not even know where they have thrown the body of my murdered parent; you cannot even embrace the father who has been traitorously assassinated by them!”
He laughed a harsh, discordant, terrible laugh, and continued:
“And yet, if we ascended that hill, we could see the Chateau de Sairmeuse in the distance, brightly illuminated. They are celebrating the marriage of Martial de Sairmeuse and Blanche de Courtornieu.Weare homeless wanderers without friends, and without a shelter for our heads:theyare feasting and making merry.”
Less than this would have sufficed to rekindle the wrath of Maurice. He forgot everything in saying to himself that to disturb this fete by his appearance would be a vengeance worthy of him.
“I will go and challenge Martial now, on the instant, in the presence of the revellers,” he exclaimed.
But Jean interrupted him.
“No, not that! They are cowards; they would arrest you. Write; I will be the bearer of the letter.”
Corporal Bavois heard them; but he did not oppose their folly. He thought it all perfectly natural, under the circumstances, and esteemed them the more for their rashness.
Forgetful of prudence they entered the first shop, and the challenge was written and confided to Jean Lacheneur.
To disturb the merrymaking at the Chateau de Sairmeuse; to change the joy of the bridal-day into sadness; to cast a gloom over the nuptials of Martial and Mlle. Blanche de Courtornieu.
This, in truth, was all that Jean Lacheneur hoped to do.
As for believing that Martial, triumphant and happy, would accept the challenge of Maurice, a miserable outlaw, he did not believe it.
While awaiting Martial in the vestibule of the chateau, he armed himself against the scorn and sneers which he would probably receive from this haughty nobleman whom he had come to insult.
But Martial’s kindly greeting had disconcerted him a little.
But he was reassured when he saw the terrible effect produced upon the marquis by the insulting letter.
“We have cut him to the quick,” he thought.
When Martial seized him by the arm and led him upstairs, he made no resistance.
While they traversed the brightly lighted drawing-rooms and passed through the crowd of astonished guests, Jean thought neither of his heavy shoes nor of his peasant dress.
Breathless with anxiety, he wondered what was to come.
He soon knew.
Leaning against the gilded door-post, he witnessed the terrible scene in the little salon.
He saw Martial de Sairmeuse, frantic with passion, cast into the face of his father-in-law Maurice d’Escorval’s letter.
One might have supposed that all this did not affect him in the least, he stood so cold and unmoved, with compressed lips and downcast eyes; but appearances were deceitful. His heart throbbed with wild exultation; and if he cast down his eyes, it was only to conceal the joy that sparkled there.
He had not hoped for so prompt and so terrible a revenge.
Nor was this all.
After brutally repulsing Blanche, his newly wedded wife, who attempted to detain him, Martial again seized Jean Lacheneur’s arm.
“Now,” said he, “follow me!”
Jean followed him still without a word.
They again crossed the grand hall, but instead of going to the vestibule Martial took a candle that was burning upon a side table, and opened a little door leading to the private staircase.
“Where are you taking me?” inquired Jean Lacheneur.
Martial, who had already ascended two or three steps, turned.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
The other shrugged his shoulders, and coldly replied:
“If you put it in that way, let us go on.”
They entered the room which Martial had occupied since taking possession of the chateau. It was the same room that had once belonged to Jean Lacheneur; and nothing had been changed. He recognized the brightly flowered curtains, the figures on the carpet, and even an old arm-chair where he had read many a novel in secret.
Martial hastened to a small writing-desk, and took from it a paper which he slipped into his pocket.
“Now,” said he, “let us go. We must avoid another scene. My father and—my wife will be seeking me. I will explain when we are outside.”
They hastily descended the staircase, passed through the gardens, and soon reached the long avenue.
Then Jean Lacheneur suddenly paused.
“To come so far for a simple yes or no is, I think, unnecessary,” said he. “Have you decided? What answer am I to give Maurice d’Escorval?”
“Nothing! You will take me to him. I must see him and speak with him in order to justify myself. Let us proceed!”
But Jean Lacheneur did not move.
“What you ask is impossible!” he replied.
“Why?”
“Because Maurice is pursued. If he is captured, he will be tried and undoubtedly condemned to death. He is now in a safe retreat, and I have no right to disclose it.”
Maurice’s safe retreat was, in fact, only a neighboring wood, where in company with the corporal, he was awaiting Jean’s return.
But Jean could not resist the temptation to make this response, which was far more insulting than if he had simply said:
“We fear informers!”
Strange as it may appear to one who knew Martial’s proud and violent nature, he did not resent the insult.
“So you distrust me!” he said, sadly.
Jean Lacheneur was silent—another insult.
“But,” insisted Martial, “after what you have just seen and heard you can no longer suspect me of having cut the ropes which I carried to the baron.”
“No! I am convinced that you are innocent of that atrocious act.”
“You saw how I punished the man who dared to compromise the honor of the name of Sairmeuse. And this man is the father of the young girl whom I wedded to-day.”
“I have seen all this; but I must still reply: ‘Impossible.’”
Jean was amazed at the patience, we should rather say, the humble resignation displayed by Martial de Sairmeuse.
Instead of rebelling against this manifest injustice, Martial drew from his pocket the paper which he had just taken from his desk, and handing it to Jean:
“Those who have brought upon me the shame of having my word doubted shall be punished for it,” he said grimly. “You do not believe in my sincerity, Jean. Here is a proof, which I expect you to give to Maurice, and which cannot fail to convince even you.”
“What is this proof?”
“The letter written by my hand, in exchange for which my father assisted in the baron’s escape. An inexplicable presentiment prevented me from burning this compromising letter. To-day, I rejoice that such was the case. Take it, and use it as you will.”
Anyone save Jean Lacheneur would have been touched by the generosity of soul. But Jean was implacable. His was a nature which nothing can disarm, which nothing can mollify; hatred in his heart was a passion which, instead of growing weaker with time, increased and became more terrible.
He would have sacrificed anything at that moment for the ineffable joy of seeing this proud and detested marquis at his feet.
“Very well, I will give it to Maurice,” he responded, coldly.
“It should be a bond of alliance, it seems to me,” said Martial, gently.
Jean Lacheneur made a gesture terrible in its irony and menace.
“A bond of alliance!” he exclaimed. “You are too fast, Monsieur le Marquis! Have you forgotten all the blood that flows between us? You did not cut the ropes; but who condemned the innocent Baron d’Escorval to death? Was it not the Duc de Sairmeuse? An alliance! You have forgotten that you and yours sent my father to the scaffold! How have you rewarded the man whose heroic honesty gave you back a fortune? By murdering him, and by ruining the reputation of his daughter.”
“I offered my name and my fortune to your sister.”
“I would have killed her with my own hand had she accepted your offer. Let this prove to you that I do not forget. If any great disgrace ever tarnishes the proud name of Sairmeuse, think of Jean Lacheneur. My hand will be in it.”
He was so frantic with passion that he forgot his usual caution. By a violent effort he recovered his self-possession, and in calmer tones he added:
“And if you are so desirous of seeing Maurice, be at the Reche to-morrow at mid-day. He will be there.”
Having said this, he turned abruptly aside, sprang over the fence skirting the avenue, and disappeared in the darkness.
“Jean,” cried Martial, in almost supplicating tones; “Jean, come back—listen to me!”
No response.
A sort of bewilderment had seized the young marquis, and he stood motionless and dazed in the middle of the road.
A horse and rider on their way to Montaignac, that nearly ran over him, aroused him from his stupor, and the consciousness of his acts, which he had lost while reading the letter from Maurice, came back to him.
Now he could judge of his conduct calmly.
Was it indeed he, Martial, the phlegmatic sceptic, the man who boasted of his indifference and his insensibility, who had thus forgotten all self-control?
Alas, yes. And when Blanche de Courtornieu, now and henceforth the Marquise de Sairmeuse, accused Marie-Anne of being the cause of his frenzy, she had not been entirely wrong.
Martial, who regarded the opinion of the entire world with disdain, was rendered frantic by the thought that Marie-Anne despised him, and considered him a traitor and a coward.
It was for her sake, that in his outburst of rage, he resolved upon such a startling justification. And if he besought Jean to lead him to Maurice d’Escorval, it was because he hoped to find Marie-Anne not far off, and to say to her:
“Appearances were against me, but I am innocent; and I have proved it by unmasking the real culprit.”
It was to Marie-Anne that he wished this famous letter to be given, thinking that she, at least, could not fail to be surprised at his generosity.
His expectations had been disappointed; and now he realized what a terrible scandal he had created.
“It will be the devil to arrange!” he explained; “but nonsense! it will be forgotten in a month. The best way will be to face those gossips at once: I will return immediately.”
He said: “I will return,” in the most deliberate manner; but in proportion as he neared the chateau, his courage failed him.
The guests must have departed ere this, and Martial concluded that he would probably find himself alone with his young wife, his father, and the Marquis de Courtornieu. What reproaches, tears, anger and threats he would be obliged to encounter.
“No,” he muttered. “I am not such a fool! Let them have a night to calm themselves. I will not appear until to-morrow.”
But where should he pass the night? He was in evening dress and bareheaded; he began to feel cold. The house belonging to the duke in Montaignac would afford him a refuge.
“I shall find a bed, some servants, a fire, and a change of clothing there—and to-morrow, a horse to return.”
It was quite a distance to walk; but in his present mood this did not displease him.
The servant who came to open the door when he rapped, was speechless with astonishment on recognizing him.
“You, Monsieur!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, it is I. Light a good fire in the drawing-room for me, and bring me a change of clothing.”
The valet obeyed, and soon Martial found himself alone, stretched upon a sofa before the cheerful blaze.
“It would be a good thing to sleep and forget my troubles,” he said to himself.
He tried; but it was not until early morning that he fell into a feverish slumber.
He awoke about nine o’clock, ordered breakfast, concluded to return to Sairmeuse, and he was eating with a good appetite, when suddenly:
“Have a horse saddled instantly!” he exclaimed.
He had just remembered the rendezvous with Maurice. Why should he not go there?
He set out at once, and thanks to a spirited horse, he reached the Reche at half-past eleven o’clock.
The others had not yet arrived; he fastened his horse to a tree near by, and leisurely climbed to the summit of the hill.
This spot had been the site of Lacheneur’s house. The four walls remained standing, blackened by fire.
Martial was contemplating the ruins, not without deep emotion, when he heard a sharp crackling in the underbrush.
He turned; Maurice, Jean, and Corporal Bavois were approaching.
The old soldier carried under his arm a long and narrow package, enveloped in a piece of green serge. It contained the swords which Jean Lacheneur had gone to Montaignac during the night to procure from a retired officer.
“We are sorry to have kept you waiting,” began Maurice, “but you will observe that it is not yet midday. Since we scarcely expected to see you——”
“I was too anxious to justify myself not to be here early,” interrupted Martial.
Maurice shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.
“It is not a question of self-justification, but of fighting,” he said, in a tone rude even to insolence.
Insulting as were the words and the gesture that accompanied them, Martial never so much as winced.
“Sorrow has rendered you unjust,” said he, gently, “or Monsieur Lacheneur here has told you nothing.”
“Jean has told me all.”
“Well, then?”
Martial’s coolness drove Maurice frantic.
“Well,” he replied, with extreme violence, “my hatred is unabated even if my scorn is diminished. You have owed me an opportunity to avenge myself, Monsieur, ever since the day we met on the square at Sairmeuse in the presence of Mademoiselle Lacheneur. You said to me on that occasion: ‘We shall meet again.’ Here we stand now face to face. What insults must I heap upon you to decide you to fight?”
A flood of crimson dyed Martial’s face. He seized one of the swords which Bavois offered him, and assumed an attitude of defence.
“You will have it so,” said he in a husky voice. “The thought of Marie-Anne can no longer save you.”
But the blades had scarcely crossed before a cry from Jean and from Corporal Bavois arrested the combat.
“The soldiers!” they exclaimed; “let us fly!”
A dozen soldiers were indeed approaching at the top of their speed.
“Ah! I spoke the truth!” exclaimed Maurice. “The coward came, but the gendarmes accompanied him.”
He bounded back, and breaking his sword over his knee, he hurled the fragments in Martial’s face, saying:
“Here, miserable wretch!”
“Wretch!” repeated Jean and Corporal Bavois, “traitor! coward!”
And they fled, leaving Martial thunderstruck.
He struggled hard to regain his composure. The soldiers were very near; he ran to meet them, and addressing the officer in command, he said, imperiously:
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes,” replied the sergeant, respectfully, “you are the son of the Duc de Sairmeuse.”
“Very well! I forbid you to follow those men.”
The sergeant hesitated at first; then, in a decided tone, he replied:
“I cannot obey you, sir. I have my orders.”
And addressing his men:
“Forward!” he exclaimed. He was about to set the example, when Martial seized him by the arm.
“At least you will not refuse to tell me who sent you here?”
“Who sent us? The colonel, of course, in obedience to orders from thegrand prevot, Monsieur de Courtornieu. He sent the order last night. We have been hidden in that grove since daybreak. But release me—tonnerre! would you have my expedition fail entirely?”
He hurried away, and Martial, staggering like a drunken man, descended the slope, and remounted his horse.
But he did not repair to the Chateau de Sairmeuse; he returned to Montaignac, and passed the remainder of the afternoon in the solitude of his own room.
That evening he sent two letters to Sairmeuse. One to his father, the other to his wife.
Terrible as Martial imagined the scandal to be which he had created, his conception of it by no means equalled the reality.
Had a thunder-bolt burst beneath that roof, the guests at Sairmeuse could not have been more amazed and horrified.
A shudder passed over the assembly when Martial, terrible in his passion, flung the crumbled letter full in the face of the Marquis de Courtornieu.
And when the marquis sank half-fainting into an arm-chair some young ladies of extreme sensibility could not repress a cry of fear.
For twenty seconds after Martial disappeared with Jean Lacheneur, the guests stood as motionless as statues, pale, mute, stupefied.
It was Blanche who broke the spell.
While the Marquis de Courtornieu was panting for breath—while the Duc de Sairmeuse was trembling and speechless with suppressed anger, the young marquise made an heroic attempt to come to the rescue.
With her hand still aching from Martial’s brutal clasp, a heart swelling with rage and hatred, and a face whiter than her bridal veil, she had strength to restrain her tears and to compel her lips to smile.
“Really this is placing too much importance on a trifling misunderstanding which will be explained to-morrow,” she said, almost gayly, to those nearest her.
And stepping into the middle of the hall she made a sign to the musicians to play a country-dance.
But when the first measures floated through the air, the company, as if by unanimous consent, hastened toward the door.
One might have supposed the chateau on fire—the guests did not withdraw, they actually fled.
An hour before, the Marquis de Courtornieu and the Duc de Sairmeuse had been overwhelmed with the most obsequious homage and adulation.
But now there was not one in that assembly daring enough to take them openly by the hand.
Just when they believed themselves all-powerful they were rudely precipitated from their lordly eminence. Disgrace and perhaps punishment were to be their portion.
Heroic to the last, the bride endeavored to stay the tide of retreating guests.
Stationing herself near the door, with her most bewitching smile upon her lips, Madame Blanche spared neither flattering words nor entreaties in her efforts to reassure the deserters.
Vain attempt! Useless sacrifice! Many ladies were not sorry of an opportunity to repay the young Marquise de Sairmeuse for the disdain and the caustic words of Blanche de Courtornieu.
Soon all the guests, who had so eagerly presented themselves that morning, had disappeared, and there remained only one old gentleman who, on account of his gout, had deemed it prudent not to mingle with the crowd.
He bowed in passing before the young marquise, and blushing at this insult to a woman, he departed as the others had done.
Blanche was now alone. There was no longer any necessity for constraint. There were no more curious witnesses to enjoy her sufferings and to make comment upon them. With a furious gesture she tore her bridal veil and the wreath of orange flowers from her head, and trampled them under foot.
A servant was passing through the hall; she stopped him.
“Extinguish the lights everywhere!” she ordered, with an angry stamp of her foot as if she had been in her own father’s house, and not at Sairmeuse.
He obeyed her, and then, with flashing eyes and dishevelled hair, she hastened to the little salon in which thedenouementhad taken place.
A crowd of servants surrounded the marquis, who was lying like one stricken with apoplexy.
“All the blood in his body has flown to his head,” remarked the duke, with a shrug of his shoulders.
For the duke was furious with his former friends.
He scarcely knew with whom he was most angry, Martial or the Marquis de Courtornieu.
Martial, by this public confession, had certainly imperilled, if he had not ruined, their political future.
But, on the other hand, had not the Marquis de Courtornieu represented a Sairmeuse as being guilty of an act of treason revolting to any honorable heart?
Buried in a large arm-chair, he sat watching, with contracted brows, the movements of the servants, when his daughter-in-law entered the room.
She paused before him, and with arms folded tightly across her breast, she said, angrily:
“Why did you remain here while I was left alone to endure such humiliation? Ah! had I been a man! All our guests have fled, Monsieur—all!”
M. de Sairmeuse sprang up.
“Ah, well! what if they have? Let them go to the devil!”
Of the guests that had just left his house there was not one whom the duke really regretted—not one whom he regarded as an equal. In giving a marriage-feast for his son, he had bidden all the gentry of the neighborhood. They had come—very well! They had fled—bon voyage!
If the duke cared at all for their desertion, it was only because it presaged with terrible eloquence the disgrace that was to come.
Still he tried to deceive himself.
“They will return, Madame; you will see them return, humble and repentant! But where can Martial be?”
The lady’s eyes flashed, but she made no reply.
“Did he go away with the son of that rascal, Lacheneur?”
“I believe so.”
“It will not be long before he returns——”
“Who can say?”
M. de Sairmeuse struck the marble mantel heavily with his clinched fist.
“My God!” he exclaimed; “this is an overwhelming misfortune.”
The young wife believed that he was anxious and angry on her account. But she was mistaken. He was thinking only of his disappointed ambition.
Whatever he might pretend, the duke secretly confessed his son’s superiority and his genius for intrigue, and he was now extremely anxious to consult him.
“He has wrought this evil; it is for him to repair it! And he is capable of it if he chooses,” he murmured.
Then, aloud, he resumed:
“Martial must be found—he must be found——”
With an angry gesture, Blanche interrupted him.
“You must seek Marie-Anne if you wish to find—my husband.”
The duke was of the same opinion, but he dared not avow it.
“Anger leads you astray, Marquise,” said he.
“I know what I know.”
“Martial will soon make his appearance, believe me. If he went away, he will soon return. They shall go for him at once, or I will go for him myself——”
He left the room with a muttered oath, and Blanche approached her father, who still seemed to be unconscious.
She seized his arm and shook it roughly, saying, in the most peremptory tone:
“Father! father!”
This voice, which had so often made the Marquis de Courtornieu tremble, was far more efficacious than eau de cologne. He opened one eye the least bit in the world, then quickly closed it; but not so quickly that his daughter failed to discover it.
“I wish to speak with you,” she said; “get up.”
He dared not disobey, and slowly and with difficulty, he raised himself.
“Ah! how I suffer!” he groaned; “how I suffer!”
His daughter glanced at him scornfully; then, in a tone of bitter irony, she remarked:
“Do you think I am in Paradise?”
“Speak,” sighed the marquis. “What do you wish to say?”
The bride turned haughtily to the servants.
“Leave the room!” she said, imperiously.
They obeyed, and, after she had locked the door:
“Let us speak of Martial,” she began.
At the sound of this name, the marquis bounded from his chair with clinched fists.
“Ah, the wretch!” he exclaimed.
“Martial is my husband, father.”
“And you!—after what he has done—you dare to defend him?”
“I do not defend him; but I do not wish him to be murdered.”
At that moment the news of Martial’s death would have given the Marquis de Courtornieu infinite satisfaction.
“You heard, father,” continued Blanche, “the rendezvous appointed to-morrow, at mid-day, on the Reche. I know Martial; he has been insulted, and he will go there. Will he encounter a loyal adversary? No. He will find a crowd of assassins. You alone can prevent him from being assassinated.”
“I! and how?”
“By sending some soldiers to the Reche, with orders to conceal themselves in the grove—with orders to arrest these murderers at the proper moment.”
The marquis gravely shook his head.
“If I do that,” said he, “Martial is quite capable—”
“Of anything! yes, I know it. But what does it matter to you, since I am willing to assume the responsibility?”
M. de Courtornieu vainly tried to penetrate the bride’s real motive.
“The order to Montaignac must be sent at once,” she insisted.
Had she been less excited she would have discerned the gleam of malice in her father’s eye. He was thinking that this would afford him an ample revenge, since he could bring dishonor upon Martial, who had shown so little regard for the honor of others.
“Very well; since you will have it so,” he said, with feigned reluctance.
His daughter made haste to bring him ink and pens, and with trembling hands he prepared a series of minute instructions for the commander at Montaignac.
Blanche herself gave the letter to a servant, with directions to depart at once; and it was not until she had seen him set off on a gallop that she went to her own apartments—the apartments in which Martial had gathered together all that was most beautiful and luxurious.
But this splendor only aggravated the misery of the deserted wife, for that she was deserted she did not doubt for a moment. She was sure that her husband would not return; she did not expect him.
The Duc de Sairmeuse was searching the neighborhood with a party of servants, but she knew that it was labor lost; that they would not encounter Martial.
Where could he be? Near Marie-Anne most assuredly—and at the thought a wild desire to wreak her vengeance on her rival took possession of her heart.
Martial, at Montaignac, had ended by going to sleep.
Blanche, when daylight came, exchanged the snowy bridal robes for a black dress, and wandered about the garden like a restless spirit.
She spent most of the day shut up in her room, refusing to allow the duke, or even her father, to enter.
In the evening, about eight o’clock, they received tidings from Martial.
A servant brought two letters; one, sent by Martial to his father, the other, to his wife.
For a moment or more Blanche hesitated to open the one intended for her. It would determine her destiny; she was afraid; she broke the seal and read:
“Madame la marquise—Between you and me all is ended; reconciliation is impossible.
“From this moment you are free. I esteem you enough to hope that you will respect the name of Sairmeuse, from which I cannot relieve you.
“You will agree with me, I am sure, in thinking a quiet separation preferable to the scandal of a divorce suit.
“My lawyer will pay you an allowance befitting the wife of a man whose income amounts to three hundred thousand francs.
“Martial de Sairmeuse.”
Blanche staggered beneath this terrible blow. She was indeed deserted, and deserted, as she supposed, for another.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, “that creature! that creature! I will kill her!”