“And if I were to beg you, Dionysia, instead of commanding. If your
old grandfather were to beseech you on his knees to abandon your fatal
project.”
“You would cause me fearful pain, dear papa: but it would be all in
vain; for I must resist your prayers, as I must resist your orders.”
“Inexorable!” cried the old gentleman. “She is immovable!” And suddenly
changing his tone, he cried,--
“But, after all, I am master here.”
“Dear papa, pray!”
“And since nothing can move you, I will speak to Mechinet, I will let
Blangin know my will.”
Dionysia, turning as pale as death, but with burning eyes, drew back a
step, and said,--
“If you do that, grandpapa, if you destroy my last hope”--
“Well?”
“I swear to you by the sacred memory of my mother, I will be in a
convent to-morrow, and you will never see me again in your life, not
even if I should die, which would certainly soon”--
M. de Chandore, raising his hands to heaven, and with an accent of
genuine despair, exclaimed,--
“Ah, my God! Are these our children? And is this what is in store for
us old people? We have spent a lifetime in watching over them; we have
submissively gratified all their fancies; they have been our greatest
anxiety, and our sweetest hope; we have given them our life day by day,
and we would not hesitate to give them our life’s blood drop by drop;
they are every thing to us, and we imagine they love us--poor fools that
we are! One fine day, a man goes by, a careless, thoughtless man, with
a bright eye and a ready tongue, and it is all over. Our child is no
longer our own; our child no longer knows us. Go, old man, and die in
your corner.”
Overwhelmed by his grief, the old man staggered and sank into a chair,
as an old oak, cut by the woodman’s axe, trembles and falls.
“Ah, this is fearful!” murmured Dionysia. “What you say, grandpapa, is
too fearful. How can you doubt me?”
She had knelt down. She was weeping; and her hot tears fell upon the old
gentleman’s hands. He started up as he felt them on his icy-cold hand;
and, making one more effort, he said,--
“Poor, poor child! And suppose Jacques is guilty, and, when he sees you,
confesses his crime, what then?”
Dionysia shook her head.
“That is impossible,” she said; “and still, even if it were so, I ought
to be punished as much as he is; for I know, if he had asked me, I
should have acted in concert with him.”
“She is mad!” exclaimed M. de Chandore, falling back into his chair.
“She is mad!”
But he was overcome; and the next day, at five in the afternoon, his
heart torn by unspeakable grief, he went down the steep street with
his daughter on his arm. Dionysia had chosen her simplest and plainest
dress; and the little bag she carried on her arm contained not sixteen
but twenty thousand francs. As a matter of course, it had been necessary
to take the marchioness into their confidence; but neither she, nor the
Misses Lavarande, nor M. Folgat, had raised an objection. Down to the
prison, grandfather and grandchild had not exchanged a word; but, when
they reached it, Dionysia said,--
“I see Mrs. Blangin at the door: let us be careful.”
They came nearer. Mrs. Blangin saluted them.
“Come, it is time,” said the young girl. “Till to-morrow, dear papa! Go
home quickly, and be not troubled about me.”
Then joining the keeper’s wife, she disappeared inside the prison.