The captain followed him mechanically, saying in a low voice: "It is
that devil of a strumpet that caused all this. What will Hulot say?"
"Strumpet!" cried the marquis in a strangled voice, "then she is one?"
The captain seemed to have given Montauran a death-blow, for he
re-entered the house with a staggering step, pale, haggard, and
undone.
Another scene had meanwhile taken place in the dining-room, which
assumed, in the marquis's absence, such a threatening character that
Marie, alone without her protector, might well fancy she read her
death-warrant in the eyes of her rival. At the noise of the volley the
guests all sprang to their feet, but Madame du Gua remained seated.
"It is nothing," she said; "our men are despatching the Blues." Then,
seeing the marquis outside on the portico, she rose. "Mademoiselle
whom you here see," she continued, with the calmness of concentrated
fury, "came here to betray the Gars! She meant to deliver him up to
the Republic."
"I could have done so twenty times to-day and yet I saved his life,"
said Mademoiselle de Verneuil.
Madame du Gua sprang upon her rival like lightning; in her blind
excitement she tore apart the fastenings of the young girl's spencer,
the stuff, the embroidery, the corset, the chemise, and plunged her
savage hand into the bosom where, as she well knew, a letter lay
hidden.
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