“I am in prison at Sauveterre, accused of a fearful crime, and my father
remains in Paris! It must be true that he never really loved me. And yet
I have always been a good son to him down to this terrible catastrophe.
He has never had to complain of me. No, my father does not love me.”
Dionysia could not allow him to go off in this way.
“Listen to me, Jacques,” she said: “let me tell you why I ran the risk
of taking this serious step, that may cost me so dear. I come to you
in the name of all your friends, in the name of M. Folgat, the great
advocate whom your mother has brought down from Paris and in the name of
M. Magloire, in whom you put so much confidence. They all agree you have
adopted an abominable system. By refusing obstinately to speak, you rush
voluntarily into the gravest danger. Listen well to what I tell you.
If you wait till the examination is over, you are lost. If you are once
handed over to the court, it is too late for you to speak. You will
only, innocent as you are, make one more on the list of judicial
murders.”
Jacques de Boiscoran had listened to Dionysia in silence, his head bowed
to the ground, as if to conceal its pallor from her. As soon as she
stopped, all out of breath, he murmured,--
“Alas! Every thing you tell me I have told myself more than once.”
“And you did not speak?”
“I did not.”
“Ah, Jacques, you are not aware of the danger you run! You do not
know”--
“I know,” he said, interrupting her in a harsh, hoarse voice,--“I know
that the scaffold, or the galleys, are at the end.”
Dionysia was petrified with horror.
Poor girl! She had imagined that she would only have to show herself
to triumph over Jacques’s obstinacy, and that, as soon as she had heard
what he had to say, she would feel reassured. And instead of that--
“What a misfortune!” she cried. “You have taken up these fearful
notions, and you will not abandon them!”
“I must keep silent.”
“You cannot. You have not considered!--”
“Not considered,” he repeated.