It so happened that, at the moment of Defrêne’s being called away, she had all but come to an end of copying one of the letters; finishing quickly she seized the draft of it in Defrêne’s handwriting and slipped it between the lining of her bodice, that chanced to be torn, and the bodice itself. Then, snatching up a needle and thread, she sewed up the rent over the letter and, resuming her pen, wrote on again for dear life. Providentially, her husband was kept in conversation a considerable time. When he returned to her, she had written out yet another of the unspeakable letters, and Defrêne had lost count of the originals; so that he did not miss the one she had secreted on her person. Finally, having completed her task, she threw down the pen and covered her face in her hands—as Defrêne triumphantly imagined in consternation at the weapon of which he was now in possession against her; in reality, for fear lest he might see the relief in her expression. For now, indeed, thanks to the letter concealed in her clothing, he was taken in his own snare! And so it proved when, a few weeks later, the Marquis went the rounds of his acquaintance armed with Marie-Elizabeth’s pretended letters to her lovers; to which she, now safe once more in her mother’s house, replied by making known the circumstances under which they had been written, and by showing to all the world Defrêne’s draft in his own handwriting that she had so fortunately been enabled to secrete in her dress. The matter ended in her obtaining a judicial separation from the Marquis, who soon became involved in another and even darker iniquity—the case of Madame de Brinvilliers—through his intimacy with the truly diabolical Sainte-Croix; an intimacy that all but obtained him the public services of the executioner. CHAPTER XVI EUSTOCHIA A Child of Sin—Born 1444—Her Early Peculiarities—Physical Possession by Evil Spirits—Sent to a Convent—A Life of Devotion—Eustochia a Novitiate—A Supernatural Accident—Belief that She Was a Hypocrite—Resignation—The Evil Spirit in Possession-Frightful Torments—Evil Portents—A Sorceress?—Imprisonment—Persecutions by Invisible Powers—Regaining Good Esteem—A Nun—Her Sanctity and Constancy—Her Death and Burial. The story of her, who was baptised by the name of Lucrezia Bellini and is now revered by the Church under that of Eustochia, which she assumed on becoming a Benedictine nun, in the year 1461, is one of the very strangest that even the Italian Quattrocento has to show. For it is the story of a child of sin who was tormented all her days by the Adversary of mankind, and who was yet a saint.