accusation--to which, indeed, appearances lent only too great a
probability--the marquise replied by showing her burnt neck and her
blackened lips, and wringing her hands in pain, cried out that she was
poisoned, that she was going to die, and begged urgently for milk, or at
least for water. Then the wife of a Protestant minister, whose name was
Madame Brunel, slipped into her hand a box of orvietan, some pieces of
which she hastened to swallow, while another lady gave her a glass of
water; but at the instant when she was lifting it to her mouth, the
chevalier broke it between her teeth, and one of the pieces of glass cut
her lips. At this, all the women would have flung themselves upon the
chevalier; but the marquise, fearing that he would only become more
enraged, and hoping to disarm him, asked, on the contrary, that she might
be left alone with him: all the company, yielding to her desire, passed
into the next room; this was what the chevalier, on his part, too, asked.

Scarcely were they alone, when the marquise, joining her hands, knelt to
him and said in the gentlest and most appealing voice that it was
possible to use, "Chevalier, my dear brother, will you not have pity upon
me, who have always had so much affection for you, and who, even now,
would give my blood for your service? You know that the things I am
saying are not merely empty words; and yet how is it you are treating me,
though I have not deserved it? And what will everyone say to such
dealings? Ah, brother, what a great unhappiness is mine, to have been so
cruelly treated by you! And yet--yes, brother--if you will deign to have
pity on me and to save my life, I swear, by my hope of heaven, to keep no
remembrance of what has happened; and to consider you always as my
protector and my friend."

All at once the marquise rose with a great cry and clasped her hand to
her right side. While she was speaking, and before she perceived what he