"Can it be that she has a lover?" he thought.

Then reflecting on his own conduct toward his wife since their marriage, he said to himself:

"And if she has, have I any right to complain? Did I not tacitly give her back her liberty?"

He was greatly troubled, and yet he would not have degraded himself so much as to play the spy, had it not been for one of those trifling circ.u.mstances which so often decide a man's destiny.

He was returning from a ride on horseback one morning about eleven o'clock, and he was not thirty paces from the Hotel de Sairmeuse when he saw a lady hurriedly emerge from the house. She was very plainly dressed--entirely in black--but her whole appearance was strikingly that of the d.u.c.h.ess.

"It is certainly my wife; but why is she dressed in such a fashion?" he thought.

Had he been on foot he would certainly have entered the house; as it was, he slowly followed Mme. Blanche, who was going up the Rue Crenelle.

She walked very quickly, and without turning her head, and kept her face persistently shrouded in a very thick veil.

When she reached the Rue Taranne, she threw herself into one of the _fiacres_ at the carriage-stand.

The coachman came to the door to speak to her; then nimbly sprang upon the box, and gave his bony horses one of those cuts of the whip that announce a princely _pourboire_.

The carriage had already turned the corner of the Rue du Dragon, and Martial, ashamed and irresolute, had not moved from the place where he had stopped his horse, just around the corner of the Rue Saint Pares.

Not daring to admit his suspicions, he tried to deceive himself.

"Nonsense!" he thought, giving the reins to his horse, "what do I risk in advancing? The carriage is a long way off by this time, and I shall not overtake it."

He did overtake it, however, on reaching the intersection of the Croix-Rouge, where there was, as usual, a crowd of vehicles.

It was the same _fiacre_; Martial recognized it by its green body, and its wheels striped with white.

Emerging from the crowd of carriages, the driver whipped up his horses, and it was at a gallop that they flew up the Rue du Vieux Columbier--the narrowest street that borders the Place Saint Sulpice--and gained the outer boulevards.

Martial's thoughts were busy as he trotted along about a hundred yards behind the vehicle.

"She is in a terrible hurry," he said to himself. "This, however, is scarcely the quarter for a lover's rendezvous."

The carriage had pa.s.sed the Place d'Italie. It entered the Rue du Chateau-des-Rentiers and soon paused before a tract of unoccupied ground.

The door was at once opened, and the d.u.c.h.esse de Sairmeuse hastily alighted.

Without stopping to look to the right or to the left, she hurried across the open s.p.a.ce.

A man, by no means prepossessing in appearance, with a long beard, and with a pipe in his mouth, and clad in a workman's blouse, was seated upon a large block of stone not far off.

"Will you hold my horse a moment?" inquired Martial.

"Certainly," answered the man.

Had Martial been less preoccupied, his suspicions might have been aroused by the malicious smile that curved the man's lips; and had he examined his features closely, he would perhaps have recognized him.

For it was Jean Lacheneur.

Since addressing that anonymous letter to the Duc de Sairmeuse, he had made the d.u.c.h.ess multiply her visits to the Widow Chupin; and each time he had watched for her coming.

"So, if her husband decides to follow her I shall know it," he thought.

It was indispensable for the success of his plans that Mme. Blanche should be watched by her husband.

For Jean Lacheneur had decided upon his course. From a thousand schemes for revenge he had chosen the most frightful and ign.o.ble that a brain maddened and enfevered by hatred could possibly conceive.

He longed to see the haughty d.u.c.h.esse de Sairmeuse subjected to the vilest ignominy, Martial in the hands of the lowest of the low. He pictured a b.l.o.o.d.y struggle in this miserable den; the sudden arrival of the police, summoned by himself, who would arrest all the parties indiscriminately. He gloated over the thought of a trial in which the crime committed at the Borderie would be brought to light; he saw the duke and the d.u.c.h.ess in prison, and the great names of Sairmeuse and of Courtornieu shrouded in eternal disgrace.

And he believed that nothing was wanting to insure the success of his plans. He had at his disposal two miserable wretches who were capable of any crime; and an unfortunate youth named Gustave, made his willing slave by poverty and cowardice, was intended to play the part of Marie-Anne's son.

These three accomplices had no suspicion of his real intentions. As for the Widow Chupin and her son, if they suspected some infamous plot, the name of the d.u.c.h.ess was all they really knew in regard to it. Moreover, Jean held Polyte and his mother completely under his control by the wealth which he had promised them if they served him docilely.

And if Martial followed his wife into the Poivriere, Jean had so arranged matters that the duke would at first suppose that she had been led there by charity.

"But he will not go in," thought Lacheneur, whose heart throbbed wildly with sinister joy as he held Martial's horse. "Monsieur le Duc is too fine for that."

And Martial did not go in. Though he was horrified when he saw his wife enter that vile den, as if she were at home there, he said to himself that he should learn nothing by following her.

He, therefore, contented himself by making a thorough examination of the outside of the house; then, remounting his horse, he departed on a gallop. He was completely mystified; he did not know what to think, what to imagine, what to believe.

But he was fully resolved to fathom this mystery and as soon as he returned home he sent Otto out in search of information. He could confide everything to this devoted servant; he had no secrets from him.

About four o'clock his faithful _valet de chambre_ returned, an expression of profound consternation visible upon his countenance.

"What is it?" asked Martial, divining some great misfortune.

"Ah, sir, the mistress of that wretched den is the widow of Chupin's son----"

Martial's face became as white as his linen.

He knew life too well not to understand that since the d.u.c.h.ess had been compelled to submit to the power of these people, they must be masters of some secret which she was willing to make any sacrifice to preserve.

But what secret?

The years which had silvered Martial's hair, had not cooled the ardor of his blood. He was, as he had always been, a man of impulses.

He rushed to his wife's apartments.

"Madame has just gone down to receive the Countess de Mussidan and the Marquise d'Arlange," said the maid.

"Very well; I will wait for her here. Retire."

And Martial entered the chamber of Mme. Blanche.

The room was in disorder, for the d.u.c.h.ess, after returning from the Poivriere, was still engaged in her toilet when the visitors were announced.

The wardrobe-doors were open, the chairs were enc.u.mbered with wearing apparel, the articles which Mme. Blanche used daily--her watch, her purse, and several bunches of keys--were lying upon the dressing-table and mantel.