Such had indeed been Blanche’s opinion; but now she shook her head, and gloomily replied: “You are wrong; what took place at the Borderie has brought my husband back to me again. I understand everything now. It is true that Marie-Anne was not his mistress; but he loved her. He loved her, and her repulses only increased his passion. It was for her sake that he abandoned me; and while she lived he would never have thought of me. His emotion on seeing me was the remnant of an emotion which she had awakened. His tenderness was only the expression of his grief. Whatever happens, I shall only have her leavings—the leavings of what she disdained!” The young marchioness spoke bitterly, her eyes flashed, and she stamped her foot as she added: “So I shan’t regret what I have done! no, never—never!” As she spoke she felt herself again brave and determined.
But horrible fears assailed her when the enquiry into the circumstances of the murder commenced. Officials had been sent from Montaignac to investigate the affair. They examined a host of witnesses, and there was even some talk of sending to Paris for one of those detectives skilled in unravelling all the mysteries of crime. This prospect quite terrified Aunt Medea; and her fear was so apparent that it caused Blanche great anxiety. “You will end by betraying us,” she remarked, one evening.
“Ah! I can’t control my fears.”
“If that is the case, don’t leave your room.”
“It would be more prudent, certainly.”
“You can say you are not well; your meals shall be served you upstairs.”
Aunt Medea’s face brightened. In her heart, she was delighted. It had long been her dream and ambition to have her meals served in her own room, in bed in the morning and on a little table by the fire in the evening; but as yet she had never been able to realise this fancy. On two or three occasions, feeling slightly indisposed, she had asked to have her breakfast brought to her room, but her request had each time been harshly refused. “If Aunt Medea is hungry, she will come downstairs, and take her place at the table as usual,” had been Blanche’s imperious reply.
It was hard, indeed, to be treated in this way in a chateau where there were always a dozen servants idling about. But now, in obedience to the young marchioness’s formal orders, the head cook himself came up every morning into Aunt Medea’s room, to receive her instructions; and she was at perfect liberty to dictate each day’s bill of fare, and to order the particular dishes she preferred. This change in the dependent relative’s situation awakened many strange thoughts in her mind, and stifled such regret as she had felt for the crime at Borderie. Still both she and her niece followed the enquiry which had been set on foot with a keen interest. They obtained all the latest information concerning the investigation through the butler of the chateau, who seemed much interested in the case, and who had won the goodwill of the Montaignac police agents, by making them familiar with the contents of his wine cellar. It was from this major-domo that Blanche and her aunt learned that all suspicions pointed to the deceased Chupin, who had been seen prowling round about the Borderie on the very night the crime was committed. This testimony was given by the same young peasant who had warned Jean Lacheneur of the old poacher’s doings. As regards the motive of the crime, fully a score of persons had heard Chupin declare that he should never enjoy any piece of mind as long as a single Lacheneur was left on earth. So thus it happened that the very incidents which might have ruined Blanche, saved her; and she really came to consider the old poacher’s death as a providential occurrence, for she at least had no reason to suspect that he had revealed her secret before expiring. When the butler told her that the magistrate and the police agents had returned to Montaignac, she could scarcely conceal her joy; and drawing a long breath of relief, she turned towards Aunt Medea with the remark: “Ah, now there’s nothing more to be feared.”
She had, indeed, escaped the justice of man; but the justice of God remained. A few weeks previously the thought of divine retribution would perhaps have made Blanche smile, for she then considered the punishment of providence as an imaginary evil, invented to hold timorous minds in check. On the morning that followed her crime, and after her long random talk with Aunt Medea, she almost shrugged her shoulders at the thought of Marie-Anne’s dying threats. She remembered her promise; and yet, despite all she had said, she did not intend to fulfil it. After careful consideration, she had come to the conclusion that in trying to find the missing child she would expose herself to terrible risks; and on the other hand, she felt certain that the child’s father would discover it. So she dismissed the matter from her mind, and chiefly busied herself with what Martial had said during his visit, and the prospect that presented itself of a reconciliation.
But she was destined to realize the power of her victim’s threats that same night. Worn out with fatigue, she retired to her room at an early hour, and jumped into bed, exclaiming; “I must sleep!” But sleep had fled. Her crime was over in her thoughts; and rose before her in all its horror and atrocity. She knew that she was lying on her bed, at Courtornieu; and yet it seemed as if she were still in Chanlouineau’s house, first pouring out the poison, and then watching its effects, while concealed in the dressing-room. She was struggling against the idea; exerting all her strength of will to drive away these terrible memories, when she imagined she heard the key turn in the lock. Raising her head from the pillow with a start, she fancied she could perceive the door open noiselessly, and then Marie-Anne glided into the room like a phantom. She seated herself in an arm-chair near the bed, and while the tears rolled down her cheeks, she looked sadly, yet threateningly around her. The murderess hid her face under the counterpane. She shivered with terror, and a cold sweat escaped from every pore in her skin. For this seemed no mere apparition, but the frightful reality itself. Blanche did not submit to these tortures without resisting. Making a vigorous effort, she tried to reason with herself aloud, as if the sound of her voice would re-assure her. “I am dreaming!” she said. “The dead don’t return to life? To think that I’m childish enough to be frightened at phantoms which only exist in my own imagination.”