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——­”