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Updated: June 3, 2025
Scarcely tolerated until then at Courtornieu, she henceforth made herself respected, and even feared. She, who usually swooned if a kitten hurt itself, did not utter a cry. Her extreme fear gave her the courage that not unfrequently animates cowards when they are in some dire extremity.
"If I accepted your offer, you would regret it continually." "Never!" "But you are no longer free. You have already plighted your troth. Mademoiselle Blanche de Courtornieu is your promised wife." "Ah! say one word only one and this engagement, which I detest, is broken." She was silent. It was evident that her mind was fully made up, and that she refused his offer.
M. de Courtornieu and the Duc de Sairmeuse were secretly blaming themselves for the exaggerations in their first reports, and the manner in which they had magnified the proportions of the rebellion. They accused each other of undue haste, of neglect of the proper forms of procedure, and the injustice of the verdict rendered.
This was why Martial said to himself that morning: "I will carry the baron's safe-conduct to Marie-Anne, and then I will push on to Courtornieu." He arrived at the Borderie gay and confident, his heart full of hope. Alas! Marie-Anne was dead.
When the crime was discovered she would be far away. No one knew she had been absent from Courtornieu; no one had seen her leave the chateau; Aunt Medea would be as silent as the grave. And besides, who would dare to accuse her, Marquise de Sairmeuse nee Blanche de Courtornieu, of being the murderer? "But she does not drink it!" Blanche thought.
A mere nothing might divert suspicion from Chupin and direct it toward her. What if some peasant had seen her with Chupin? What if some trifling circumstance should furnish a clew which would lead straight to Courtornieu? "When the investigation is over, I shall forget," she thought. It ended, but she did not forget.
It was six days since Martial had presented himself at Courtornieu; and Blanche was half crazed with grief and rage. What Aunt Medea was forced to endure during this interval, only poor dependents in rich families can understand. For the first three days Mlle.
She was so evidently desirous of pleasing him that several of the guests remarked it. Some were even shocked by such a breach of conventionality. But Blanche de Courtornieu could do as she chose; she was well aware of that. Was she not the richest heiress for miles and miles around? No slander can tarnish the brilliancy of a fortune of more than a million in hard cash.
"All those who take their illusions for realities, as you have done; all those who, because they desire anything very much, really believe that it will come to pass. Do you really suppose that neither the Duc de Sairmeuse nor the Marquis de Courtornieu has been warned of it?" Lacheneur shrugged his shoulders. "Who could have warned them?"
Blanche in the little salon at the end of the main hall. Martial hastened there, followed by a crowd of wondering guests, who, foreseeing a stormy scene, were determined not to lose a syllable. He walked directly to M. de Courtornieu, who was standing by the fireplace, and handing him the letter: "Read!" said he, in a terrible voice. M. de Courtornieu obeyed.
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