“Thanks for your letter, my darling. A presentiment had warned me, and I
had asked for a copy of Cooper.
“I understand but too well how grieved you must be at seeing me kept
in prison without my making an effort to establish my innocence. I
kept silence, because I hoped the proof of my innocence would come from
outside. I see that it would be madness to hope so any longer, and that
I must speak. I shall speak. But what I have to say is so very serious,
that I shall keep silence until I shall have had an opportunity of
consulting with some one in whom I can feel perfect confidence. Prudence
alone is not enough now: skill also is required. Until now I felt
secure, relying on my innocence. But the last examination has opened my
eyes, and I now see the danger to which I am exposed.
“I shall suffer terribly until the day when I can see a lawyer. Thank
my mother for having brought one. I hope he will pardon me, if I address
myself first to another man. I want a man who knows the country and its
customs.
“That is why I have chosen M. Magloire; and I beg you will tell him
to hold himself ready for the day on which, the examination being
completed, I shall be relieved from close confinement.
“Until then, nothing can be done, nothing, unless you can obtain that
the case be taken out of M. G-----‘s hands, and be given to some one
else. That man acts infamously. He wants me to be guilty. He would
himself commit a crime in order to charge me with it, and there is no
kind of trap he does not lay for me. I have the greatest difficulty in
controlling myself every time I see this man enter my cell, who was my
friend, and now is my accuser.
“Ah, my dear ones! I pay a heavy price for a fault of which I have been,
until now, almost unconscious.
“And you, my only friend, will you ever be able to forgive me the
terrible anxiety I cause you?
“I should like to say much more; but the prisoner who has handed me your
note says I must be quick, and it takes so much time to pick out the
words!
“J.”
When the letter had been read, M. Folgat and M. de Chandore sadly turned
their heads aside, fearing lest Dionysia should read in their eyes the
secret of their thoughts. But she felt only too well what it meant.
“You cannot doubt Jacques, grandpapa!” she cried.
“No,” murmured the old gentleman feebly, “no.”
“And you, M. Folgat--are you so much hurt by Jacques’s desire to consult
another lawyer?”
“I should have been the first, madam, to advise him to consult a
native.”
Dionysia had to summon all her energy to check her tears.
“Yes,” she said, “this letter is terrible; but how can it be otherwise?
Don’t you see that Jacques is in despair, that his mind wanders after
all these fearful shocks?”
Somebody knocked gently at the door.
“It is I,” said the marchioness.
Grandpapa Chandore, M. Folgat, and Dionysia looked at each other for a
moment; and then the advocate said,--
“The situation is too serious: we must consult the marchioness.” He rose
to open the door. Since the three friends had been holding the council
in the baron’s study, a servant had come five times in succession to
knock at the door, and tell them that the soup was on the table.
“Very well,” they had replied each time.
At last, as they did not come down yet, Jacques’s mother had come to the
conclusion that something extraordinary had occurred.
“Now, what could this be, that they should keep it from her?” she
thought. If it were something good, they would not have concealed it
from her. She had come up stairs, therefore, with the firm resolution to
force them to let her come in. When M. Folgat opened the door, she said
instantly,--
“I mean to know all!”