At this very moment Blanche entered the room.  She looked so careworn and sad that he scarcely knew her.  His heart was touched by the look of patient sorrow imprinted upon her features.

“How much you must have suffered, Blanche,” he murmured, scarcely knowing what he said.

It cost her an effort to repress her secret joy.  She saw that he knew nothing of her crime.  She noticed his emotion, and saw the profit she could derive from it.

“I can never cease to regret having displeased you,” she replied, humbly and sadly.  “I shall never be consoled.”

She had touched the vulnerable spot in every man’s heart.

For there is no man so sceptical, so cold, or so blase that his vanity is not pleased with the thought that a woman is dying for his sake.

There is no man who is not moved by this most delicious flattery, and who is not ready and willing to give, at least, a tender pity in exchange for such devotion.

“Is it possible that you could forgive me?” stammered Martial.

The wily enchantress averted her face as if to prevent him from reading in her eyes a weakness of which she was ashamed.  It was the most eloquent of replies.

But Martial said no more on this subject.  He made known his petition, which was granted, then fearing, perhaps, to promise too much, he said: 

“Since you do not forbid it, Blanche, I will return—­to-morrow—­another day.”

As he rode back to Montaignac, Martial’s thoughts were busy.

“She really loves me,” he thought; “that pallor, that weakness could not be feigned.  Poor girl! she is my wife, after all.  The reasons that influenced me in my rupture with her father exist no longer, and the Marquis de Courtornieu may be regarded as dead.”

All the inhabitants of Sairmeuse were congregated on the public square when Martial passed through the village.  They had just heard of the murder at the Borderie, and the abbe was now closeted with the justice of the peace, relating the circumstances of the poisoning.

After a prolonged inquest the following verdict was rendered:  “That a man known as Chupin, a notoriously bad character, had entered the house of Marie-Anne Lacheneur, and taken advantage of her absence to mingle poison with her food.”

The report added that:  “Said Chupin had been himself assassinated, soon after his crime, by a certain Balstain, whose whereabouts were unknown.”

But this affair interested the community much less than the visits which Martial was paying to Mme. Blanche.

It was soon rumored that the Marquis and the Marquise de Sairmeuse were reconciled, and in a few weeks they left for Paris with the intention of residing there permanently.  A few days after their departure, the eldest of the Chupins announced his determination of taking up his abode in the same great city.

Some of his friends endeavored to dissuade him, assuring him that he would certainly die of starvation.