“It is not to be to-day, provided, O God! that poor Mechinet has not
been caught.”
And, perhaps in order to escape for a time the anguish of her fears, she
agreed to accompany Jacques’s mother, who wanted to pay some visits.
Ah, if she had but known! She had not left the house ten minutes, when
one of those street-boys, who abound at all hours of the day on the
great Square, appeared, bringing a letter to her address. They took it
to M. de Chandore, who, while waiting for dinner, was walking in the
garden with M. Folgat.
“A letter for Dionysia!” exclaimed the old gentleman, as soon as the
servant had disappeared. “Here is the answer we have been waiting for!”
He boldly tore it open. Alas! It was useless. The note within the
envelope ran thus,--
“31:9, 17, 19, 23, 25, 28, 32, 101, 102, 129, 137, 504, 515--37:2, 3, 4,
5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 24, 27, 52, 54, 118, 119, 120, 200, 201--41:7,
9, 17, 21, 22, 44, 45, 46”--
And so on, for two pages.
“Look at this, and try to make it out,” said M. de Chandore, handing the
letter to M. Folgat.
The young man actually tried it; but, after five minutes’ useless
efforts, he said,--
“I understand now why Miss Chandore promised us that we should know
the truth. M. de Boiscoran and she have formerly corresponded with each
other in cipher.”
Grandpapa Chandore raised his hands to heaven.
“Just think of these little girls! Here we are utterly helpless without
her, as she alone can translate those hieroglyphics for you.”
If Dionysia had hoped, by accompanying the marchioness on her visits,
to escape from the sad presentiments that oppressed her, she was cruelly
disappointed. They went to M. Seneschal’s house first; but the mayor’s
wife was by no means calculated to give courage to others in an hour of
peril. She could do nothing but embrace alternately Jacques’s mother and
Dionysia, and, amid a thousand sobs, tell them over and over again, that
she looked upon one as the most unfortunate of mothers, and upon the
other as the most unfortunate of betrothed maidens.
“Does the woman think Jacques is guilty?” thought Dionysia, and felt
almost angry.
And that was not all. As they returned home, and passed the house which
had been provisionally taken for Count Claudieuse and his family, they
heard a little boy calling out,--
“O mamma, come quick! Here are the murderer’s mother and his
sweetheart.”
Thus the poor girl came home more downcast than before. Immediately,
however, her maid, who had evidently been on the lookout for her return,
told her that her grandfather and the lawyer from Paris were waiting for
her in the baron’s study. She hastened there without stopping to take
off her bonnet; and, as soon as she came in, M. de Chandore handed her
Jacques’s letter, saying,--
“Here is your answer.”
She could not repress a little cry of delight, and rapidly touched the
letter with her lips, repeating,--
“Now we are safe, we are safe!”