It was evident that Marie-Anne was on the point of drinking this when she heard the signal.
Mme. Blanche was wondering how she could profit by her discovery, when her eyes fell upon a large oaken box standing open upon a table near the glass door leading into the dressing-room, and filled with tiny boxes and vials.
Mechanically she approached it, and among the bottles she saw two of blue glass, upon which the word “poison” was inscribed.
“Poison!” Blanche could not turn her eyes from this word, which seemed to exert a kind of fascination over her.
A diabolical inspiration associated the contents of these vials with the bowl standing upon the mantel.
“And why not?” she murmured. “I could escape afterward.”
A terrible thought made her pause. Martial would return with Marie-Anne; who could say that it would not be he who would drink the contents of the bowl.
“God shall decide!” she murmured. “It is better one’s husband should be dead than belong to another!”
And with a firm hand, she took up one of the vials.
Since her entrance into the cottage Blanche had scarcely been conscious of her acts. Hatred and despair had clouded her brain like fumes of alcohol.