Kneeling by the half-open door, Blanche eagerly watched the workings of the poison which she had administered.

She was so near her victim that she could distinguish the throbbing of her temples, and sometimes she fancied she could feel upon her cheek her rival’s breath, which scorched like flame.

An utter prostration followed Marie-Anne’s paroxysm of agony. One would have supposed her dead had it not been for the convulsive workings of the jaws and her labored breathing.

But soon the nausea returned, and she was seized with vomiting. Each effort to relieve seemed to wrench her whole body; and gradually a ghastly tint crept over her face, the spots upon her cheeks became more pronounced in tint, her eyes appeared ready to burst from their sockets, and great drops of perspiration rolled down her cheeks.

Her sufferings must have been intolerable. She moaned feebly at times, and occasionally rendered heart-rending shrieks. Then she faltered fragmentary sentences; she begged piteously for water or entreated God to shorten her torture.

“Ah, it is horrible! I suffer too much! Death! My God! grant me death!”

She invoked all the friends she had ever known, calling for aid in a despairing voice.

She called Mme. d’Escorval, the abbe, Maurice, her brother, Chanlouineau, Martial!

Martial, this name was more than sufficient to extinguish all pity in the heart of Mme. Blanche.

“Go on! call your lover, call!” she said to herself, bitterly. “He will come too late.”

And as Marie-Anne repeated the name in a tone of agonized entreaty:

“Suffer!” continued Mme. Blanche, “suffer, you who have inspired Martial with the odious courage to forsake me, his wife, as a drunken lackey would abandon the lowest of degraded creatures! Die, and my husband will return to me repentant.”

No, she had no pity. She felt a difficulty in breathing, but that resulted simply from the instinctive horror which the sufferings of others inspire — an entirely different physical impression, which is adorned with the fine name of sensibility, but which is, in reality, the grossest selfishness.

And yet, Marie-Anne was perceptibly sinking. Soon she had not strength even to moan; her eyes closed, and after a spasm which brought a bloody foam to her lips, her head sank back, and she lay motionless.

“It is over,” murmured Blanche.

She rose, but her limbs trembled so that she could scarcely stand.

Her heart remained firm and implacable; but the flesh failed.

Never had she imagined a scene like that which she had just witnessed. She knew that poison caused death; she had not suspected the agony of that death.

She no longer thought of augmenting Marie-Anne’s sufferings by upbraiding her. Her only desire now was to leave this house, whose very floor seemed to scorch her feet.

A strange, inexplicable sensation crept over her; it was not yet fright, it was the stupor that follows the commission of a terrible crime — the stupor of the murderer.

Still, she compelled herself to wait a few moments longer; then seeing that Marie-Anne still remained motionless and with closed eyes, she ventured to softly open the door and to enter the room in which her victim was lying.

But she had not advanced three steps before Marie-Anne suddenly, and as if she had been galvanized by an electric battery, rose and extended her arms to bar her enemy’s passage.

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 Marquis de Sairmeuse,” she said, in an almost inaudible voice; “I am the wife of Maurice d’Escorval. Here is the proof — read.”

No sooner had Blanche glanced at the paper, than she became as pale as her victim. Her sight failed her; there was a strange ringing in her ears, a cold sweat started from every pore.

This paper was the marriage-certificate of Maurice and Marie-Anne, drawn up by the cure of Vigano, witnessed by the old physician and Bavois, and sealed with the seal of the parish.

The proof was indisputable. She had committed a useless crime; she had murdered an innocent woman.

The first good impulse of her life made her heart beat more quickly. She did not stop to consider; she forgot the danger to which she exposed herself, and in a ringing voice she cried:

“Help! help!”

Eleven o’clock was sounding; the whole country was asleep. The farm-house nearest the Borderie was half a league distant.

The voice of Blanche was lost in the deep stillness of the night.

In the garden below Aunt Medea heard it, perhaps; but she would have allowed herself to be chopped in pieces rather than stir from her place.

And yet, there was one who heard that cry of distress. Had Blanche and her victim been less overwhelmed with despair, they would have heard a noise upon the staircase which creaked beneath the tread of a man who was cautiously ascending it. But it was not a saviour, for he did not answer the appeal. But even though there had been aid near at hand, it would have come too late.

Marie-Anne felt that there was no longer any hope for her, and that it was the chill of death which was creeping up to her heart. She felt that her life was fast ebbing away.

So, when Blanche seemed about to rush out in search of assistance, she detained her by a gesture, and gently said:

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