“Sir, I bring you a visitor.”
And, moving aside, he made way for Dionysia, or, rather, he pushed her
into the room; for she seemed to have lost all power to move.
“A visitor?” repeated M. de Boiscoran.
But the jailer had raised his lantern, and the poor man could recognize
his betrothed.
“You,” he cried, “you here!”
And he drew back, afraid of being deceived by a dream, or one of those
fearful hallucinations which announce the coming of insanity, and take
hold of the brains of sick people in times of over-excitement.
“Dionysia!” he barely whispered, “Dionysia!”
If not her own life (for she cared nothing for that), but Jacques’s
life, had at that moment depended on a single word, Dionysia could not
have uttered it. Her throat was parched, and her lips refused to move.
The jailer took it upon himself to answer,--
“Yes,” he said, “Miss Chandore.”
“At this hour, in my prison!”
“She had something important to communicate to you. She came to me”--
“O Dionysia!” stammered Jacques, “what a precious friend”--
“And I agreed,” said Blangin in a paternal tone of voice, “to bring her
in secretly. It is a great sin I commit; and if it ever should become
known--But one may be ever so much a jailer, one has a heart, after all.
I tell you so merely because the young lady might not think of it. If
the secret is not kept carefully, I should lose my place, and I am a
poor man, with wife and children.”
“You are the best of men!” exclaimed M. de Boiscoran, far from
suspecting the price that had been paid for Blangin’s sympathy, “and, on
the day on which I regain my liberty, I will prove to you that we whom
you have obliged are not ungrateful.”
“Quite at your service,” replied the jailer modestly.
Gradually, however, Dionysia had recovered her self-possession. She said
gently to Blangin,--
“Leave us now, my good friend.”
As soon as he had disappeared, and without allowing M. de Boiscoran to
say a word, she said, speaking very low,--
“Jacques, grandpapa has told me, that by coming thus to you at night,
alone, and in secret, I run the risk of losing your affection, and of
diminishing your respect.”
“Ah, you did not think so!”
“Grandpapa has more experience than I have, Jacques. Still I did not
hesitate. Here I am; and I should have run much greater risks; for your
honor is at stake, and your honor is my honor, as your life is my life.
Your future is at stake, _our_ future, our happiness, all our hopes here
below.”
Inexpressible joy had illumined the prisoner’s face.
“O God!” he cried, “one such moment pays for years of torture.”
But Dionysia had sworn to herself, as she came, that nothing should turn
her aside from her purpose. So she went on,--
“By the sacred memory of my mother, I assure you, Jacques, that I have
never for a moment doubted your innocence.”
The unhappy man looked distressed.
“You,” he said; “but the others? But M. de Chandore?”
“Do you think I would be here, if he thought you were guilty? My aunts
and your mother are as sure of it as I am.”
“And my father? You said nothing about him in your letter.”
“Your father remained in Paris in case some influence in high quarters
should have to be appealed to.”