She saw the gendarmes at the chateau; she saw her niece arrested, incarcerated in the Montaignac prison, and brought before the Court of Assizes.
If this were all she had to fear! But suppose she, too, were compromised, suspected of complicity, dragged before the judge, and even accused of being the sole culprit!
Finding the suspense intolerable, she left her room; and, stealing on tiptoe to the great drawing-room, she applied her ear to the door of the little blue salon, in which Blanche and Martial were seated.
The conversation which she heard convinced her that her fears were groundless.
She drew a long breath, as if a mighty burden had been lifted from her breast. But a new idea, which was to grow, flourish, and bear fruit, had just taken root in her brain.
When Martial left the room, Aunt Medea at once opened the communicating door and entered the blue salon, thus avowing that she had been a listener.
Twenty-four hours earlier she would not have dreamed of committing such an enormity.
“Well, Blanche, we were frightened at nothing,” she exclaimed.
Blanche did not reply.
She was deliberating, forcing herself to weigh the probable consequences of all these events which had succeeded each other with such marvellous rapidity.