Peace was patched up between the ill-assorted couple, and Marie was persuaded to withdraw her letter and promise to do her best to accept the position, and make her husband happy. “With a little strength of mind,” she wrote to an uncle, “with patience and my husband’s love, I may grow contented. Charles adores me, and I cannot but be touched by the caresses he lavishes on me.” He must have been willing enough to secure her good graces, for he wanted her to part with her fortune to improve his business. He had discovered a new process in iron-smelting, which promised to be profitable, and his wife lent him money to develop the invention. Then he hurried to Paris to secure the patent, and while absent from Glandier, where his wife remained, the first event occurred on which the suspicion of foul play was based. Madame Lafarge was now so affectionately disposed that she desired to send her portrait to her husband. The picture was to be accompanied by a number of small cakes prepared by the mother-in-law, and Marie Lafarge wrote to beg her husband to eat one at a particular hour on a particular day. She would do the same at Glandier, and thereby set up some mysterious _rapport_ with her husband. When the parcel arrived, the picture was found within, but no small cakes, only one large one. The box had been tampered with. When it left Glandier, it was screwed down. It reached Paris fastened with long nails. Lafarge, on opening it, broke off a part of the large cake, and ate it. That night he was taken violently ill. The cake presumably contained poison, but the fact was never proved, still less that Marie Lafarge had inserted the arsenic, which it was supposed to contain. The evidence against her was that she had bought some of this baneful drug from a chemist at Glandier. The charge was definitely made, but on weak evidence, the chief being the purchased arsenic and her manifest agitation when the news came from Paris that her husband had been taken ill. On the other hand, there was nothing to show that she had substituted the large poisoned cake for the small ones, or that no one else had handled the parcel. Here crept in the notion of another agency, and the suggestion that some one else might have been anxious to poison Lafarge. This idea was by no means extravagant, and it cropped up more than once during the proceedings, but no proper attention was paid to it. Had the clue been followed, it might have led inquiry to the possible guilt of another person.