“I shall be back in half an hour.”
He nearly ran down the steep street, hastened along National Street, and
then climbed up more slowly Castle Street. When M. Blangin, the keeper,
saw him appear, he turned very pale; for M. Blangin had not slept since
Dionysia had given him the seventeen thousand francs. He, once upon a
time the special friend of all gendarmes, now trembled when one of them
entered the jail. Not that he felt any remorse about having betrayed his
duty; oh, no! but he feared discovery.
More than ten times he had changed the hiding-place of his precious
stocking; but, wherever he put it, he always fancied that the eyes of
his visitors were riveted upon that very spot. He recovered, however,
from his fright when Anthony told him his errand, and replied in the
most civil manner,--
“M. Magloire came here at nine o’clock precisely. I took him immediately
to M. de Boiscoran’s cell; and ever since they have been talking,
talking.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Of course I am. Must I not know every thing that happens in my jail? I
went and listened. You can hear nothing from the passage: they have shut
the wicket, and the door is massive.”
“That is strange,” murmured the old servant.
“Yes, and a bad sign,” declared the keeper with a knowing air. “I have
noticed that the prisoners who take so long to state their case to their
advocate always catch the maximum of punishment.”
Anthony, of course, did not report to his masters the jailer’s mournful
anticipations; but what he told them about the length of the interview
did not tend to relieve their anxiety.
Gradually the color had faded from Dionysia’s cheeks; and the clear ring
of her voice was half drowned in tears, when she said, that it would
have been better, perhaps, if she had put on mourning, and that seeing
the whole family assembled thus reminded her of a funeral.
The sudden arrival of Dr. Seignebos cut short her remarks. He was in a
great passion, as usual; and as soon as he entered, he cried,--
“What a stupid town Sauveterre is! Nothing but gossip and idle reports!
The people are all of them old women. I feel like running away, and
hiding myself. On my way here, twenty curious people have stopped me to
ask me what M. de Boiscoran is going to do now. For the town is full of
rumors. They know that Magloire is at the jail now; and everybody wants
to be the first to hear Jacques’s story.”
He had put his immense broad brimmed hat on the table, and, looking
around the room at all the sad faces he asked,--
“And you have no news yet?”
“Nothing,” replied M. Seneschal and M. Folgat at the same breath.
“And we are frightened by this delay,” added Dionysia.
“And why?” asked the physician.