“Tell your mistress I will be there!” But in his heart he thought some
untoward event must have happened.
The little garden-gate was half-open: he had only to push it to enter.
There was no moon; but the night was clear, and at a short distance from
him, under the trees, he recognized Dionysia, and went towards her.
“Pardon me, sir,” she said, “for having dared to send for you.”
Mechinet’s anxiety vanished instantly. He thought no longer of his
strange position. His vanity was flattered by the confidence which this
young lady put in him, whom he knew very well as the noblest, the most
beautiful, and the richest heiress in the whole country.
“You were quite right to send for me, madam,” he replied, “if I can be
of any service to you.”
In a few words she had told him all; and, when she asked his advice, he
replied,--
“I am entirely of M. Folgat’s opinion, and think that grief and
isolation begin to have their effect upon M. de Boiscoran’s mind.”
“Oh, that thought is maddening!” murmured the poor girl.
“I think, as M. Magloire does, that M. de Boiscoran, by his silence,
only makes his situation much worse. I have a proof of that. M. Galpin,
who, at first, was all doubt and anxiety, is now quite reassured. The
attorney-general has written him a letter, in which he compliments his
energy.”
“And then.”
“Then we must induce M. de Boiscoran to speak. I know very well that he
is firmly resolved not to speak; but if you were to write to him, since
you can write to him”--
“A letter would be useless.”
“But”--
“Useless, I tell you. But I know a means.”
“You must use it promptly, madam: don’t lose a moment. There is no
time.”
The night was clear, but not clear enough for the clerk to see how very
pale Dionysia was.
“Well, then, I must see M. de Boiscoran: I must speak to him.”
She expected the clerk to start, to cry out, to protest. Far from it: he
said in the quietest tone,--
“To be sure; but how?”
“Blangin the keeper, and his wife, keep their places only because
they give them a support. Why might I not offer them, in return for
an interview with M. de Boiscoran, the means to go and live in the
country?”
“Why not?” said the clerk.
And in a lower voice, replying to the voice of his conscience, he went
on,--
“The jail in Sauveterre is not at all like the police-stations and
prisons of larger towns. The prisoners are few in number; they are
hardly guarded. When the doors are shut, Blangin is master within.”
“I will go and see him to-morrow,” declared Dionysia.
There are certain slopes on which you must glide down. Having once
yielded to Dionysia’s suggestions, Mechinet had, unconsciously, bound
himself to her forever.
“No: do not go there, madam,” he said. “You could not make Blangin
believe that he runs no danger; nor could you sufficiently arouse his
cupidity. I will speak to him myself.”
“O sir!” exclaimed Dionysia, “how can I ever?”--
“How much may I offer him?” asked the clerk.
“Whatever you think proper--any thing.”
“Then, madam, I will bring you an answer to-morrow, here, and at the
same hour.”
And he went away, leaving Dionysia so buoyed up by hope, that all the
evening, and the next day, the two aunts and the marchioness, neither of
whom was in the secret, asked each other incessantly,--
“What is the matter with the child?”
She was thinking, that, if the answer was favorable, ere twenty-four
hours had gone by, she would see Jacques; and she kept saying to
herself,--
“If only Mechinet is punctual!”
He was so. At ten o’clock precisely, he pushed open the little gate,
just as the night before, and said at once,--
“It is all right!”
Dionysia was so terribly excited, that she had to lean against a tree.
“Blangin agrees,” the clerk went on. “I promised him sixteen thousand
francs. Perhaps that is rather much?”
“It is very little.”
“He insists upon having them in gold.”
“He shall have it.”
“Finally, he makes certain conditions with regard to the interview,
which will appear rather hard to you.”
The young girl had quite recovered by this time.
“What are they?”
“Blangin is taking all possible precautions against detection, although
he is quite prepared for the worst. He has arranged it this way:
To-morrow evening, at six o’clock, you will pass by the jail. The door
will stand open, and Blangin’s wife, whom you know very well, as she has
formerly been in your service, will be standing in the door. If she does
not speak to you, you keep on: something has happened. If she does speak
to you, go up to her, you, quite alone, and she will show you into a
small room which adjoins her own. There you will stay till Blangin,
perhaps at a late hour, thinks he can safely take you to M. de
Boiscoran’s cell. When the interview is over, you come back into the
little room, where a bed will be ready for you, and you spend the night
there; for this is the hardest part of it: you cannot leave the prison
till next day.”
This was certainly terrible; still, after a moment’s reflection,
Dionysia said,--
“Never mind! I accept. Tell Blangin, M. Mechinet, that it is all right.”
That Dionysia should accept all the conditions of Blangin the jailer
was perfectly natural; but to obtain M. de Chandore’s consent was a much
more difficult task. The poor girl understood this so well, that, for
the first time in her life, she felt embarrassed in her grandfather’s
presence. She hesitated, she prepared her little speech, and she
selected carefully her words. But in spite of all her skill, in spite of
all the art with which she managed to present her strange request, M. de
Chandore had no sooner understood her project than he exclaimed,--
“Never, never, never!”
Perhaps in his whole life the old gentleman had never expressed himself
in so positive a manner. His brow had never looked so dark. Usually,
when his granddaughter had a petition, his lips might say, “No;” but his
eyes always said, “Yes.”
“Impossible!” he repeated, and in a tone of voice which seemed to admit
of no reply.
Surely, in all these painful events, he had not spared himself, and he
had so far done for Dionysia all that she could possibly expect of him.
Her will had been his will. As she had prompted, he had said, “Yes,” or
“No.” What more could he have said or done?
Without telling him what she was going to do with it, Dionysia had asked
him for twenty thousand francs, and he had given them to her, however
big the sum might be everywhere, however immense in a small town like
Sauveterre. He was quite ready to give her as much again, or twice as
much, without asking any more questions.
But for Dionysia to leave her home one evening at six o’clock, and not
to return to it till the next morning--
“That I cannot permit,” he repeated.
But for Dionysia to spend a night in the Sauveterre jail, in order to
have an interview with her betrothed, who was accused of incendiarism
and murder; to remain there all night, alone, absolutely at the mercy of
the jailer, a hard, coarse, covetous man--
“That I will never permit,” exclaimed the old gentleman once more.
Dionysia remained calm, and let the storm pass. When her grandfather
became silent, she said,--
“But if I must?”