“Suffer!” continued Mme. Blanche, “suffer, you who have inspired Martial with the odious courage to forsake me, his wife, as a drunken lackey would abandon the lowest of degraded creatures! Die, and my husband will return to me repentant.”
No, she had no pity. She felt a difficulty in breathing, but that resulted simply from the instinctive horror which the sufferings of others inspire—an entirely different physical impression, which is adorned with the fine name of sensibility, but which is, in reality, the grossest selfishness.
And yet, Marie-Anne was perceptibly sinking. Soon she had not strength even to moan; her eyes closed, and after a spasm which brought a bloody foam to her lips, her head sank back, and she lay motionless.
“It is over,” murmured Blanche.
She rose, but her limbs trembled so that she could scarcely stand.
Her heart remained firm and implacable; but the flesh failed.
Never had she imagined a scene like that which she had just witnessed. She knew that poison caused death; she had not suspected the agony of that death.
She no longer thought of augmenting Marie-Anne’s sufferings by upbraiding her. Her only desire now was to leave this house, whose very floor seemed to scorch her feet.
A strange, inexplicable sensation crept over her; it was not yet fright, it was the stupor that follows the commission of a terrible crime—the stupor of the murderer.
Still, she compelled herself to wait a few moments longer; then seeing that Marie-Anne still remained motionless and with closed eyes, she ventured to softly open the door and to enter the room in which her victim was lying.