“That was the reason why Jacques was so very angry when you spoke of
inviting the Countess Claudieuse, and why he told you, that, if he
saw her enter at one door, he would walk out of the other. We did not
understand his aversion.”
“Alas! it was not aversion. Jacques only obeyed at that time the cunning
lessons given him by the countess.”
In less than one minute the most contradictory resolutions seemed to
flit across the marquis’s face. He hesitated, and at last he said,--
“Whatever can be done to make up for my inaction, I will do. I will go
to Sauveterre. Jacques must be saved. M. de Margeril is all-powerful. Go
to him. I permit it. I beg you will do it.”
The eyes of the marchioness filled with tears, hot tears, the first she
had shed since the beginning of this scene.
“Do you not see,” she asked, “that what you wish me to do is now
impossible? Every thing, yes, every thing in the world but that. But
Jacques and I--we are innocent. God will have pity on us. M. Folgat will
save us.”