“And yet she, also, did not come yesterday. Why? Oh! no doubt they have
told her all. They have told her how I came to be at Valpinson the night
of the crime.”
“You are mistaken, Jacques,” said M. Magloire. “Miss Chandore knows
nothing.”
“Is it possible?”
“M. Magloire did not speak in her presence,” added M. Folgat; “and we
have bound over M. de Chandore to secrecy. I insisted upon it that you
alone had the right to tell the truth to Miss Dionysia.”
“Then how does she explain it to herself that I am not set free?”
“She cannot explain it.”
“Great God! she does not also think I am guilty?”
“If you were to tell her so yourself, she would not believe you.”
“And still she never came here yesterday.”
“She could not. Although they told her nothing, your mother had to be
told. The marchioness was literally thunderstruck. She remained for more
than an hour unconscious in Miss Dionysia’s arms. When she recovered her
consciousness, her first words were for you; but it was then too late to
be admitted here.”
When M. Folgat mentioned Miss Dionysia’s name, he had found the surest,
and perhaps the only means to break Jacques’s purpose.
“How can I ever sufficiently thank you, sir?” asked the latter.
“By promising me that you will forever abandon that fatal resolve which
you had formed,” replied the young advocate. “If you were guilty, I
should be the first to say, ‘Be it so!’ and I would furnish you with the
means. Suicide would be an expiation. But, as you are innocent, you have
no right to kill yourself: suicide would be a confession.”
“What am I to do?”
“Defend yourself. Fight.”
“Without hope?”
“Yes, even without hope. When you faced the Prussians, did you ever
think of blowing out your brains? No! and yet you knew that they were
superior in numbers, and would conquer, in all probability. Well, you
are once more in face of the enemy; and even if you were certain of
being conquered, that is to say, of being condemned, and it was the
day before you should have to mount the scaffold, I should still say,
‘Fight. You must live on; for up to that hour something may happen which
will enable us to discover the guilty one.’ And, if no such event
should happen, I should repeat, nevertheless, ‘You must wait for the
executioner in order to protest from the scaffold against the judicial
murder, and once more to affirm your innocence.’”
As M. Folgat uttered these words, Jacques had gradually recovered his
bearing; and now he said,--
“Upon my honor, sir, I promise you I will hold out to the bitter end.”
“Well!” said M. Magloire,--“very well!”
“First of all,” replied M. Folgat, “I mean to recommence, for our
benefit the investigation which M. Galpin has left incomplete. To-night
your mother and I will leave for Paris. I have come to ask you for the
necessary information, and for the means to explore your house in Vine
Street, to discover the friend whose name you assumed, and the servant
who waited upon you.”
The bolts were drawn as he said this; and at the open wicket appeared
Blangin’s rubicund face.
“The Marchioness de Boiscoran,” he said, “is in the parlor, and begs you
will come down as soon as you have done with these gentlemen.”
Jacques turned very pale.
“My mother,” he murmured. Then he added, speaking to the jailer,--
“Do not go yet. We have nearly done.”
His agitation was too great: he could not master it. He said to the two
lawyers,--
“We must stop here for to-day. I cannot think now.”
But M. Folgat had declared he would leave for Paris that very night; and
he was determined to do so. He said, therefore,--
“Our success depends on the rapidity of our movements. I beg you will
let me insist upon your giving me at once the few items of information
which I need for my purposes.”