Now, when the period for mourning was over, the relations of the marquise and Sainte-Croix were as open and public as before:  the two brothers d’Aubray expostulated with her by the medium of an older sister who was in a Carmelite nunnery, and the marquise perceived that her father had on his death bequeathed the care and supervision of her to her brothers.  Thus her first crime had been all but in vain:  she had wanted to get rid of her father’s rebukes and to gain his fortune; as a fact the fortune was diminished by reason of her elder brothers, and she had scarcely enough to pay her debts; while the rebukes were renewed from the mouths of her brothers, one of whom, being civil lieutenant, had the power to separate her again from her lover.  This must be prevented.  Lachaussee left the service of Sainte-Croix, and by a contrivance of the marquise was installed three months later as servant of the elder brother, who lived with the civil lieutenant.  The poison to be used on this occasion was not so swift as the one taken by M. d’Aubray so violent a death happening so soon in the same family might arouse suspicion.  Experiments were tried once more, not on animals—­for their different organisation might put the poisoner’s science in the wrong—­but as before upon human subjects; as before, a ‘corpus vili’ was taken.  The marquise had the reputation of a pious and charitable lady; seldom did she fail to relieve the poor who appealed:  more than this, she took part in the work of those devoted women who are pledged to the service of the sick, and she walked the hospitals and presented wine and other medicaments.  No one was surprised when she appeared in her ordinary way at l’Hotel-Dieu.  This time she brought biscuits and cakes for the convalescent patients, her gifts being, as usual, gratefully received.  A month later she paid another visit, and inquired after certain patients in whom she was particularly interested:  since the last time she came they had suffered a relapse—­the malady had changed in nature, and had shown graver symptoms.  It was a kind of deadly fatigue, killing them by a slows strange decay.  She asked questions of the doctors but could learn nothing:  this malady was unknown to them, and defied all the resources of their art.  A fortnight later she returned.  Some of the sick people were dead, others still alive, but desperately ill; living skeletons, all that seemed left of them was sight, speech, and breath.  At the end of two months they were all dead, and the physicians had been as much at a loss over the post-mortems as over the treatment of the dying.