Since she had been discovered, nothing in the world would induce her to deny her guilt. She advanced resolutely, and in a firm voice: “Yes,” she said, “I have taken my revenge. Do you think I did not suffer that evening when you sent your brother to take away my newly wedded husband, upon whose face I have not gazed since?” “Your husband! I sent to take him away! I do not understand you.” “Do you then dare to deny that you are not Martial’s mistress!” “The Marquis de Sairmeuse! I saw him yesterday for the first time since Baron d’Escorval’s escape.” The effort which she had made to rise and to speak had exhausted her strength. She fell back in the armchair. But Blanche was pitiless. “You have not seen Martial! Tell me, then, who gave you this costly furniture, these silken hangings, all the luxury that surrounds you?” “Chanlouineau.” Blanche shrugged her shoulders. “So be it,” she said, with an ironical smile, “but is it Chanlouineau for whom you are waiting this evening? Is it for Chanlouineau you have warmed these slippers and laid this table? Was it Chanlouineau who sent his clothing by a peasant named Poignot? You see that I know all----” But her victim was silent. “For whom are you waiting?” she insisted. “Answer!” “I cannot!” “You know that it is your lover! wretched woman--my husband, Martial!” Marie-Anne was considering the situation as well as her intolerable sufferings and troubled mind would permit. Could she tell what guests she was expecting? To name Baron d’Escorval to Blanche, would it not ruin and betray him? They hoped for a safe-conduct, a revision of judgment, but he was none the less under sentence of death, executory in twenty-four hours. “So you refuse to tell me whom you expect here in an hour--at midnight.” “I refuse.” But a sudden impulse took possession of the sufferer’s mind. Though the slightest movement caused her intolerable agony, she tore open her dress and drew from her bosom a folded paper. “I am not the mistress of the Marquis de Sairmeuse,” she said, in an almost inaudible voice; “I am the wife of Maurice d’Escorval. Here is the proof--read.” No sooner had Blanche glanced at the paper, than she became as pale as her victim. Her sight failed her; there was a strange ringing in her ears, a cold sweat started from every pore. This paper was the marriage-certificate of Maurice and Marie-Anne, drawn up by the cure of Vigano, witnessed by the old physician and Bavois, and sealed with the seal of the parish. The proof was indisputable. She had committed a useless crime; she had murdered an innocent woman. The first good impulse of her life made her heart beat more quickly. She did not stop to consider; she forgot the danger to which she exposed herself, and in a ringing voice she cried: “Help! help!” Eleven o’clock was sounding; the whole country was asleep. The farm-house nearest the Borderie was half a league distant. The voice of Blanche was lost in the deep stillness of the night.