Sainte-Croix and the marquise loved at first sight, and she was soon his mistress.The marquis, perhaps endowed with the conjugal philosophy which alone pleased the taste of the period, perhaps too much occupied with his own pleasure to see what was going on before his eyes, offered no jealous obstacle to the intimacy, and continued his foolish extravagances long after they had impaired his fortunes:
his affairs became so entangled that the marquise, who cared for him no longer, and desired a fuller liberty for the indulgence of her new passion, demanded and obtained a separation.She then left her husband's house, and henceforth abandoning all discretion, appeared everywhere in public with Sainte-Croix.This behaviour, authorised as it was by the example of the highest nobility, made no impression upon the.Marquis of Brinvilliers,who merrily pursued the road to ruin, without worrying about his wife's behaviour.Not so M.de Dreux d'Aubray: he had the scrupulosity of a legal dignitary.He was scandalised at his daughter's conduct, and feared a stain upon his own fair name: he procured a warrant for the arrest of Sainte-Croix wheresoever the bearer might chance to encounter him.We have seen how it was put in execution when Sainte-Croix was driving in the carriage of the marquise, whom our readers will doubtless have recognised as the woman who concealed herself so carefully.
>From one's knowledge of the character of Sainte-Croix, it is easy to imagine that he had to use great self-control to govern the anger he felt at being arrested in the middle of the street; thus, although during the whole drive he uttered not a single word, it was plain to see that a terrible storm was gathering, soon to break.But he preserved the same impossibility both at the opening and shutting of the fatal gates, which, like the gates of hell, had so often bidden those who entered abandon all hope on their threshold, and again when he replied to the formal questions put to him by the governor.His voice was calm, and when they gave him they prison register he signed it with a steady hand.At once a gaoler, taking his orders from the governor, bade him follow: after traversing various corridors, cold and damp, where the daylight might sometimes enter but fresh air never, he opened a door, and Sainte-Croix had no sooner entered than he heard it locked behind him.
At the grating of the lock he turned.The gaoler had left him with no light but the rays of the moon, which, shining through a barred window some eight or ten feet from the ground, shed a gleam upon a miserable truckle-bed and left the rest of the room in deep obscurity.The prisoner stood still for a moment and listened; then, when he had heard the steps die away in the distance and knew himself to be alone at last, he fell upon the bed with a cry more like the roaring of a wild beast than any human sound: he cursed his fellow-man who had snatched him from his joyous life to plunge him into a dungeon; he cursed his God who had let this happen; he cried aloud to whatever powers might be that could grant him revenge and liberty.
Just at that moment, as though summoned by these words from the bowels of the earth, a man slowly stepped into the circle of blue light that fell from the window-a man thin and pale, a man with long hair, in a black doublet, who approached the foot of the bed where Sainte-Croix lay.Brave as he was, this apparition so fully answered to his prayers (and at the period the power of incantation and magic was still believed in) that he felt no doubt that the arch-enemy of the human race, who is continually at hand, had heard him and had now come in answer to his prayers.He sat up on the bed, feeling mechanically at the place where the handle of his sword would have been but two hours since, feeling his hair stand on end, and a cold sweat began to stream down his face as the strange fantastic being step by step approached him.At length the apparition paused, the prisoner and he stood face to face for a moment, their eyes riveted;then the mysterious stranger spoke in gloomy tones.
"Young man," said he, "you have prayed to the devil for vengeance on the men who have taken you, for help against the God who has abandoned you.I have the means, and I am here to proffer it.Have you the courage to accept?""First of all," asked Sainte-Croix; "who are you?""Why seek you to know who I am," replied the unknown, "at the very moment when I come at your call, and bring what you desire?""All the same," said Sainte-Croix, still attributing what he heard to a supernatural being, "when one makes a compact of this kind, one prefers to know with whom one is treating.""Well, since you must know," said the stranger, "I am the Italian Exili."Sainte-Croix shuddered anew, passing from a supernatural vision to a horrible reality.The name he had just heard had a terrible notoriety at the time, not only in France but in Italy as well.
Exili had been driven out of Rome, charged with many poisonings, which, however, could not be satisfactorily brought home to him.He had gone to Paris, and there, as in his native country, he had drawn the eyes of the authorities upon himself; but neither in Paris nor in Rome was he, the pupil of Rene and of Trophana, convicted of guilt.
