‘You may well be surprised,’ replied the intruder. ‘I can excuse your alarm, especially when you had such interesting schemes to settle.’
‘He has heard everything!’ said the Marchioness to Sainte-Croix.
She spoke in a low, hurried tone, scarcely above a whisper; but the quick ears of Exili caught the import.
‘Ay, everything,’ he replied, with emphasis upon the last word; ‘both here, and when you thought there were no others near you but the silent inmates of the salle des cadavres at the Hôtel Dieu.’
Marie instantly recollected the alarm which the noise of footsteps had caused at the hospital, and the figure which she said had followed them in the Rue des Mathurins.
‘Every day—every hour,’ continued Exili, as his eyes blazed upon them like those of a famished animal in sight of food, ‘brings you closer and closer to my toils.’
‘I presume I may be spared from this threatened revenge,’ said Marie, ‘whatever it be. There has been nothing in common between us. I know you not.’
‘But I know you, Marchioness of Brinvilliers,’ returned Exili. ‘I ought to. The mention of your name, one fine spring evening, on the Carrefour du Châtelet, caused me to be hunted like a beast from my habitation, and confined for many lingering months in the noisome cells of the Bastille. You caused the punishment: you shall assist in its reparation, or, failing therein, be ruined with your paramour.’
‘Miscreant!’ cried Sainte-Croix, as he seized an antique axe from a stand of ancient arms that surmounted the mantelpiece; ‘silence! unless you would have your miserable life ended at this instant.’
‘Strike, monsieur,’ replied Exili calmly. ‘Kill me here, if you please; and to-morrow morning you will be summoned by the Procureur du Roi to attend the exhumation of the body of M.