“I believe he is in danger.”
“Jacques,” murmured the old marchioness,--“my son!”
“I said in danger,” repeated the advocate; “but I ought to have said, he
is in a strange, almost incredible, unnatural position.”
“Let us hear,” said the marchioness.
The lawyer was evidently very much embarrassed; and he looked with
unmistakable distress, first at Dionysia, and then at the two old aunts.
But nobody noticed this, and so he said,--
“I must ask to be left alone with these gentlemen.”
In the most docile manner the Misses Lavarande rose, and took their
niece and Jacques’s mother with them: the latter was evidently near
fainting. As soon as the door was shut, Grandpapa Chandore, half mad
with grief, exclaimed,--
“Thanks, M. Magloire, thanks for having given me time to prepare my poor
child for the terrible blow. I see but too well what you are going to
say. Jacques is guilty.”
“Stop,” said the advocate: “I have said nothing of the kind. M. de
Boiscoran still protests energetically that he is innocent; but he
states in his defence a fact which is so entirely improbable, so utterly
inadmissible”--
“But what does he say?” asked M. Seneschal.
“He says that the Countess Claudieuse has been his mistress.”
Dr. Seignebos started, and, readjusting his spectacles, he cried
triumphantly,--
“I said so! I have guessed it!”
M. Folgat had, on this occasion, very naturally, no deliberative voice.
He came from Paris, with Paris ideas; and, whatever he might have been
told, the name of the Countess Claudieuse revealed to him nothing. But,
from the effect which it produced upon the others, he could judge what
Jacques’s accusation meant. Far from being of the doctor’s opinion M.
de Chandore and M. Seneschal both seemed to be as much shocked as M.
Magloire.
“That is incredible,” said one.
“That is impossible,” added the other.