And what good would it have done for me to protest?
The filial love and piety which you displayed were far more powerful in their effect than any words of mine would have been.

You were scarcely out of the village before Monsieur de Sairmeuse, already ashamed of his injustice, said to me: 'I have been wrong, but I am an old man; it is hard for me to decide to make the first advance; you, Marquis, go and find Monsieur Lacheneur, and obtain his forgiveness.'" Marie-Anne, redder than a peony, and terribly embarrassed, lowered her eyes.
"I thank you, Monsieur," she faltered, "in the name of my father--" "Oh! do not thank me," interrupted Martial, earnestly; "it will be my duty, on the contrary, to render you thanks, if you can induce Monsieur Lacheneur to accept the reparation which is due him--and he will accept it, if you will only condescend to plead our cause.

Who could resist your sweet voice, your beautiful, beseeching eyes ?" However inexperienced Maurice might be, he could no longer fail to comprehend Martial's intentions.

This man whom he mortally hated already, dared to speak of love to Marie-Anne, and before him, Maurice.
In other words, the marquis, not content with having ignored and insulted him, presumed to take an insolent advantage of his supposed simplicity.
The certainty of this insult sent all his blood in a boiling torrent to his brain.
He seized Martial by the arm, and with irresistible power whirled him twice around, then threw him more than ten feet, exclaiming: "This last is too much, Marquis de Sairmeuse!" Maurice's attitude was so threatening that Martial fully expected another attack.

The violence of the shock had thrown him down upon one knee; without rising, he lifted his gun, ready to take aim.
It was not from anything like cowardice on the part of the Marquis de Sairmeuse that he decided to fire upon an unarmed foe; but the affront which he had received was so deadly and so ignoble in his opinion, that he would have shot Maurice like a dog, rather than feel the weight of his finger upon him again.
This explosion of anger from Maurice Marie-Anne had been expecting and hoping for every moment.
She was even more inexperienced than her lover; but she was a woman, and could not fail to understand the meaning of the young marquis.
He was evidently "paying his court to her." And with what intentions! It was only too easy to divine.
Her agitation, while the marquis spoke in a more and more tender voice, changed first to stupor, then to indignation, as she realized his marvellous audacity.
After that, how could she help blessing the violence which put an end to a situation which was so insulting for her, and so humiliating for Maurice?
An ordinary woman would have thrown herself between the two men who were ready to kill each other.