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Below, in the barren fields that surrounded the citadel, eight persons were waiting, silent, anxious, breathless. They were Mme. d'Escorval and Maurice, Marie-Anne, Abbe Midon, and the four retired army officers. There was no moon; but the night was very clear, and they could see the tower quite plainly.
I say even more: fight against thoughts of Marie-Anne as a traveller on the verge of a precipice fights against the thought of vertigo." "Have you seen Marie-Anne, father? Have you spoken to her?" "I found her even more inflexible than Lacheneur." "They reject me, and they receive Chanlouineau, perhaps." "Chanlouineau is living there." "My God! And Martial de Sairmeuse?"
"But if I have injured you even in thought, I now offer you reparation. I have been a fool a miserable fool for I love you; I love, and can love you only. I am the Marquis de Sairmeuse. I am the possessor of millions. I entreat you, I implore you to be my wife." Marie-Anne listened in utter bewilderment. Vertigo seized her; even reason seemed to totter upon its throne.
She had confided her anxiety and her sufferings to her father; and she made him swear that he would profit by this opportunity to rid her of Marie-Anne. On his side, the duke, persuaded that Marie-Anne was his son's mistress, wished, at any cost, to prevent her appearance before the tribunal. At last the marquis yielded.
She was so beautiful that Martial regarded her with wonder. "Lovely!" he murmured, in English; "beautiful as an angel!" These words, which she understood, abashed Marie-Anne. But she had said enough; her father felt that he was avenged.
A fierce-blooded offspring, he thought, one like Cleopatra herself, not afraid to kill and equally quick to make amends when there was a mistake. There came the quiet opening of the cabin door to break in upon his thought. He hoped it was Jeanne Marie-Anne returning to him. It was Nepapinas. The old Indian stood over him for a moment and put a cold, claw-like hand to his forehead.
At last, in despair, he threw himself upon his bed, and passed the remainder of the night in thinking over what he should say to Marie-Anne on the morrow, and in seeking some issue from this inextricable labyrinth. He rose before daybreak, and wandered about the park like a soul in distress, fearing, yet longing, for the hour that would decide his fate.
But any intervention was unnecessary. Maurice comprehended that this was one of those affronts which the person insulted must not seem to suspect, under penalty of giving the offending party the advantage. He felt that Marie-Anne must not be regarded as the cause of the quarrel!
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, he soon discovered the calculating ambition and the utter worldliness concealed beneath such seeming simplicity and candor. Nor was he long in discerning her intense vanity, her lack of principle, and her unbounded selfishness; and, comparing her with the noble and generous Marie-Anne, his admiration was changed into indifference, or rather repugnance.
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