“If she comes, it is as I have guessed,” he reflected.
She came.
Hidden in the loft of the Poivriere, Jean, through an opening in the floor, saw the duchess give a banknote to Mother Chupin.
“Now, she is in my power!” he thought exultantly. “Through what sloughs of degradation will I drag her before I deliver her up to her husband’s vengeance!”
CHAPTER LIV
A few lines of the article consecrated to Martial de Sairmeuse in the “General Biography of the Men of the Century,” give the history of his life after his marriage.
“Martial de Sairmeuse,” it says there, “brought to the service of his party a brilliant intellect and admirable endowments. Called to the front at the moment when political strife was raging with the utmost violence, he had courage to assume the sole responsibility of the most extreme measures.
“Compelled by almost universal opprobrium to retire from office, he left behind him animosities which will be extinguished only with life.”
But what this article does not state is this: if Martial was wrong—and that depends entirely upon the point of view from which his conduct is regarded—he was doubly wrong, since he was not possessed of those ardent convictions verging upon fanaticism which make men fools, heroes, and martyrs.