“In the flesh,” he responded. “This was a grand chance for you. Ah, ha! The business riled your stomach a little, but nonsense! that will soon pass off. But we must not dawdle here; someone may come in. Let us make haste.”
Mechanically the murderess advanced; but Marie-Anne’s dead body lay between her and the door, barring the passage. To leave the room it was necessary to step over the lifeless form of her victim. She had not courage to do this, and recoiled with a shudder.
But Chupin was troubled by no such scruples. He sprang across the body, lifted Blanche as if she had been a child and carried her out of the house.
He was drunk with joy. Fears for the future no longer disquieted him, now that Mme. Blanche was bound to him by the strongest of chains—complicity in crime.
He saw himself on the threshold of a life of ease and continual feasting. Remorse for Lacheneur’s betrayal had ceased to trouble him. He saw himself sumptuously fed, lodged and clothed; above all, effectually guarded by an army of servants.
Blanche, who had experienced a feeling of deadly faintness, was revived by the cool night air.
“I wish to walk,” said she.
Chupin placed her on the ground about twenty paces from the house.
“And Aunt Medea!” she exclaimed.
Her relative was beside her; like one of those dogs who are left at the door when their master enters a house, she had, instinctively followed her niece on seeing her borne from the cottage by the old poacher.