‘Ay,’ said Gaudin, uttering each word slowly and calmly, as if he would have had it sink into the heart and memory of her he was addressing. ‘Ay—die! if we are to give the rein to our attachment. I cannot brook the slow and secret arts of an intrigue with thee, Marie; my love must have full scope and open daylight. I repeat, your husband and father must be removed. Do you understand me?’
The Marchioness returned no answer. Her hands were clasped over her eyes, and the hot tears trickled through her fingers, strained convulsively as if to shut out sight—sound—all sense whatever.
‘I have the means,’ continued Gaudin; ‘safe, secure means, that defy detection. You know the medicines that I have given you from time to time for your patients at the Hôtel Dieu. How did they work?’
‘Alas! alas!’ screamed the Marchioness, ‘I see it all; they were poisons! Oh, Gaudin!—lost—lost!’ And she buried her face in the cushions, writhing like a serpent.
Not an emotion was traceable in the face of Sainte-Croix, as, with a steady hand, he took a small packet from his cloak, and slowly breaking the seals, shook a portion of its contents into one of the glasses near him—a tall goblet with a piece of antique money blown in its hollow stem—which he filled with wine. He then raised the Marchioness from her crouching position, and, lifting the glass to his lips, said to her—
‘Marie; in your letter to me this night, you asked for means of death. You are not of that clay from which a self-murderess is made. Let our love end. I will set you an example.’
He made a motion as if to drink, but deliberately enough for the Marchioness to seize his hand and arrest the progress of the goblet to his mouth.
‘No! no!’ she ejaculated, ‘I will be your tool, your slave, even until death!’ Sainte-Croix placed the goblet on the table and clasped Marie in his arms, when suddenly a different door from that by which he had entered opened, and a tall, stately old man stood looking on the scene before him. Absorbed in each other they had not heard the door open, and it was not until his deep voice uttered the name of Marie that the Marchioness and Sainte-Croix perceived the intruder. It was Monsieur d’Aubray.
‘My father!’ shrieked the agonised woman, her eyes staring and her lips apart. Sainte-Croix spoke not a word, but rose and bowed.
The old man returned the salutation as ceremoniously as if the scene were passing at the king’s levée at Versailles.