The hour in which the marquise was to take this medicine was hardly over when the abbe and the chevalier sent to know how she was.  She replied that she was quite well, and invited them to a collation which she was giving about four o’clock to the ladies who made up her little circle.  An hour afterwards the abbe and the chevalier sent a second time to inquire after her; the marquise, without paying particular attention to this excessive civility, which she remembered afterwards, sent word as before that she was perfectly well.  The marquise had remained in bed to do the honours of her little feast, and never had she felt more cheerful.  At the hour named all her guests arrived; the abbe and the chevalier were ushered in, and the meal was served.  Neither one nor the other would share it; the abbe indeed sat down to table, but the chevalier remained leaning on the foot of the bed.  The abbe appeared anxious, and only roused himself with a start from his absorption; then he seemed to drive away some dominant idea, but soon the idea, stronger than his will, plunged him again into a reverie, a state which struck everyone the more particularly because it was far from his usual temper.  As to the chevalier, his eyes were fixed constantly upon his sister-in-law, but in this there was not, as in his brother’s behaviour, anything surprising, since the marquise had never looked so beautiful.

The meal over, the company took leave.  The abbe escorted the ladies downstairs; the chevalier remained with the marquise; but hardly had the abbe left the room when Madame de Ganges saw the chevalier turn pale and drop in a sitting position—­he had been standing on the foot of the bed.  The marquise, uneasy, asked what was the matter; but before he could reply, her attention was called to another quarter.  The abbe, as pale and as disturbed as the chevalier, came back into the room, carrying in his hands a glass and a pistol, and double-locked the door behind him.  Terrified at this spectacle, the marquise half raised herself in her bed, gazing voiceless and wordless.  Then the abbe approached her, his lips trembling; his hair bristling and his eyes blazing, and, presenting to her the glass and the pistol, “Madame,” said he, after a moment of terrible silence, “choose, whether poison, fire, or”—­he made a sign to the chevalier, who drew his sword—­“or steel.”

The marquise had one moment’s hope:  at the motion which she saw the chevalier make she thought he was coming to her assistance; but being soon undeceived, and finding herself between two men, both threatening her, she slipped from her bed and fell on her knees.

“What have I done,” she cried, “oh, my God? that you should thus decree my death, and after having made yourselves judges should make yourselves executioners?  I am guilty of no 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.