“Ah! how I suffer!” he groaned; “how I suffer!”

His daughter glanced at him scornfully; then, in a tone of bitter irony, she remarked: 

“Do you think I am in Paradise?”

“Speak,” sighed the marquis.  “What do you wish to say?”

The bride turned haughtily to the servants.

“Leave the room!” she said, imperiously.

They obeyed, and, after she had locked the door: 

“Let us speak of Martial,” she began.

At the sound of this name, the marquis bounded from his chair with clinched fists.

“Ah, the wretch!” he exclaimed.

“Martial is my husband, father.”

“And you!—­after what he has done—­you dare to defend him?”

“I do not defend him; but I do not wish him to be murdered.”

At that moment the news of Martial’s death would have given the Marquis de Courtornieu infinite satisfaction.

“You heard, father,” continued Blanche, “the rendezvous appointed to-morrow, at mid-day, on the Reche.  I know Martial; he has been insulted, and he will go there.  Will he encounter a loyal adversary?  No.  He will find a crowd of assassins.  You alone can prevent him from being assassinated.”

“I! and how?”

“By sending some soldiers to the Reche, with orders to conceal themselves in the grove—­with orders to arrest these murderers at the proper moment.”

The marquis gravely shook his head.

“If I do that,” said he, “Martial is quite capable—­”

“Of anything! yes, I know it.  But what does it matter to you, since I am willing to assume the responsibility?”

M. de Courtornieu vainly tried to penetrate the bride’s real motive.

“The order to Montaignac must be sent at once,” she insisted.

Had she been less excited she would have discerned the gleam of malice in her father’s eye.  He was thinking that this would afford him an ample revenge, since he could bring dishonor upon Martial, who had shown so little regard for the honor of others.

“Very well; since you will have it so,” he said, with feigned reluctance.

His daughter made haste to bring him ink and pens, and with trembling hands he prepared a series of minute instructions for the commander at Montaignac.

Blanche herself gave the letter to a servant, with directions to depart at once; and it was not until she had seen him set off on a gallop that she went to her own apartments—­the apartments in which Martial had gathered together all that was most beautiful and luxurious.

But this splendor only aggravated the misery of the deserted wife, for that she was deserted she did not doubt for a moment.  She was sure that her husband would not return; she did not expect him.

The Duc de Sairmeuse was searching the neighborhood with a party of servants, but she knew that it was labor lost; that they would not encounter Martial.