But he got worse, rapidly worse. His symptoms were alarming, and pointed undoubtedly to arsenical poisoning, judged by our modern knowledge. Madame Lafarge, senior, now became strongly suspicious of her daughter-in-law, and insisted on remaining always by her son's bedside. Marie opposed this, and wished to be her husband's sole nurse, and, according to the prosecution, would have kept everyone else from him. She does not seem to have succeeded, for the relatives and servants were constantly in the sick-room. Some of the latter were very much on the mother's side, and one, a lady companion, Anna Brun, afterwards deposed that she had seen Marie go to a cupboard and take a white powder from it, which she mixed with the medicine and food given to Lafarge. Madame Lafarge, senior, again, and her daughter, showed the medical attendant a cup of chicken broth on the surface of which white powder was floating. The doctor said it was probably lime from the whitewashed wall. The ladies tried the experiment of mixing lime with broth, and did not obtain the same appearance. Yet more, Anna Brun, having seen Marie Lafarge mix powder as before in her husband's drink, heard him cry out, "What have you given me? It burns like fire." "I am not surprised," replied Marie quietly. "They let you have wine, although you are suffering from inflammation of the stomach." Yet Marie Lafarge made no mystery of her having arsenic. Not only did she speak of it in the early days, but during the illness she received a quantity openly before them all. It was brought to her at Lafarge's bedside by one of his clerks, Denis Barbier (of whom more directly), and she put it into her pocket. She told her husband she had it. He had been complaining of the rats that disturbed him overhead, and the arsenic was to kill them. Lafarge took the poison from his wife, handed it over to a maid-servant, and desired her to use it in a paste as a vermin-killer. Here the facts were scarcely against Marie Lafarge. As the husband did not improve, on the 13th his mother sent a special messenger to fetch a new doctor from a more distant town. On their way back to Glandier, this messenger, the above-mentioned Denis Barbier, confided to the doctor that he had often bought [Illustration: "ON THIS THE MOTHER DENOUNCED MARIE TO THE NOW DYING LAFARGE" (p. 142).] arsenic for Marie Lafarge, but that she had begged him to say nothing about it. The doctor, Lespinasse by name, saw the patient, and immediately ordered antidotes, while some of the white powder was sent for examination to the chemist who had originally supplied the arsenic. The chemist does not seem to have detected poison, but he suggested that nothing more should be given Lafarge unless it had been prepared by a sure hand.