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.

In the garden below Aunt Medea heard it, perhaps; but she would have allowed herself to be chopped in pieces rather than stir from her place.

And yet, there was one who heard that cry of distress.  Had Blanche and her victim been less overwhelmed with despair, they would have heard a noise upon the staircase which creaked beneath the tread of a man who was cautiously ascending it.  But it was not a saviour, for he did not answer the appeal.  But even though there had been aid near at hand, it would have come too late.

Marie-Anne felt that there was no longer any hope for her, and that it was the chill of death which was creeping up to her heart.  She felt that her life was fast ebbing away.

So, when Blanche seemed about to rush out in search of assistance, she detained her by a gesture, and gently said: 

“Blanche.”

The murderess paused.

“Do not summon anyone; it would do no good.  Remain; be calm, that I may at least die in peace.  It will not be long now.”