"How he loved me!" murmured Marie-Anne, moved by that emotion, the bare thought of which had awakened the jealousy of Maurice.

But she had neither the time nor the right to yield to her feelings.

Father Poignot was doubtless, even then, awaiting her at the rendezvous.

She lifted the hearth-stone, and found the sum of money which Chanlouineau had named.

The next morning, when he awoke, the abbe received the money.

Now, Marie-Anne could breathe freely; and this peace, after so many trials and agitations, seemed to her almost happiness.

Faithful to the abbe's instructions, she lived alone; but, by frequent visits, she accustomed the people of the neighborhood to her presence.

Yes, she would have been almost happy, could she have had news of Maurice. What had become of him? Why did he give no sign of life? What would she not have given in exchange for some word of counsel and of love from him?

The time was fast approaching when she would require a confidant; and there was no one in whom she could confide.

In this hour of extremity, when she really felt that her reason was failing her, she remembered the old physician at Vigano, who had been one of the witnesses to her marriage.

"He would help me if I called upon him for aid," she thought.

She had no time to temporize or to reflect; she wrote to him immediately, giving the letter in charge of a youth in the neighborhood.

"The gentleman says you may rely upon him," said the messenger on his return.

That very evening Marie-Anne heard someone rap at her door. It was the kind-hearted old man who had come to her relief.

He remained at the Borderie nearly a fortnight.

When he departed one morning, before daybreak, he took away with him under his large cloak an infant--a boy--whom he had sworn to cherish as his own child.

CHAPTER XLII

To quit Sairmeuse without any display of violence had cost Blanche an almost superhuman effort.

The wildest anger convulsed her soul at the very moment, when, with an a.s.sumption of melancholy dignity, she murmured those words of forgiveness.

Ah! had she obeyed the dictates of her resentment!

But her indomitable vanity aroused within her the heroism of a gladiator dying on the arena, with a smile upon his lips.

Falling, she intended to fall gracefully.

"No one shall see me weep; no one shall hear me complain," she said to her despondent father; "try to imitate me."

And on her return to the Chateau de Courtornieu, she was a stoic.

Her face, although pale, was as immobile as marble, beneath the curious gaze of the servants.

"I am to be called mademoiselle as in the past," she said, imperiously.

"Anyone forgetting this order will be dismissed."

A maid forgot that very day, and uttered the prohibited word, "madame."

The poor girl was instantly dismissed, in spite of her tears and protestations.

All the servants were indignant.

"Does she hope to make us forget that she is married and that her husband has deserted her?" they queried.

Alas! she wished to forget it herself. She wished to annihilate all recollection of that fatal day whose sun had seen her a maiden, a wife, and a widow.

For was she not really a widow?

Only it was not death which had deprived her of her husband, but an odious rival--an infamous and perfidious creature lost to all sense of shame.

And yet, though she had been disdained, abandoned, and repulsed, she was no longer free.

She belonged to the man whose name she bore like a badge of servitude--to the man who hated her, who fled from her.

She was not yet twenty; and this was the end of her youth, of her life, of her hopes, and even of her dreams.

Society condemned her to solitude, while Martial was free to rove wheresoever fancy might lead him.

Now she saw the disadvantage of isolating one's self. She had not been without friends in her school-girl days; but after leaving the convent she had alienated them by her haughtiness, on finding them not as high in rank, nor as rich as herself. She was now reduced to the irritating consolations of Aunt Medea, who was a worthy person, undoubtedly, but her tears flowed quite as freely for the loss of a cat, as for the death of a relative.

But Blanche bravely resolved that she would conceal her grief and despair in the recesses of her own heart.

She drove about the country; she wore the prettiest dresses in her _trousseau_; she forced herself to appear gay and indifferent.

But on going to attend high ma.s.s in Sairmeuse the following Sunday, she realized the futility of her efforts.

People did not look at her haughtily, or even curiously; but they turned away their heads to laugh, and she overheard remarks upon the maiden widow which pierced her very soul.

They mocked her; they ridiculed her!

"Oh! I will have my revenge!" she muttered.

But she had not waited for these insults before thinking of vengeance; and she had found her father quite ready to a.s.sist her in her plans.

For the first time the father and the daughter were in accord.

"The Duc de Sairmeuse shall learn what it costs to aid in the escape of a prisoner and to insult a man like me. Fortune, favor, position--he shall lose all! I hope to see him ruined and dishonored at my feet.

You shall see that day! you shall see that day!" said the marquis, vehemently.

But, unfortunately for him and his plans, he was extremely ill for three days, after the scene at Sairmeuse; then he wasted three days more in composing a report, which was intended to crush his former ally.

This delay ruined him, since it gave Martial time to perfect his plans and to send the Duc de Sairmeuse to Paris skilfully indoctrinated.