“Well, then, I must leave you. I am going to hang abut M. de Tassar’s
house, and make my inquiries. Perhaps I may pick up something there.
To-morrow I shall spend my day in searching the house in Vine Street and
in questioning all the tradesmen on your list. The day after to-morrow
I shall probably have finished here. So that in four or five days there
will arrive in Sauveterre a somebody, who will be myself.” And as he got
up, he added,--
“For I must save M. de Boiscoran. I will and I must do it. He has too
nice a house. Well, we shall see each other at Sauveterre.”
It struck four o’clock. M. Folgat left the café immediately after
Goudar, and went down the river to University Street. He was anxious to
see the marquis and the marchioness.
“The marchioness is resting,” said the valet; “but the marquis is in his
cabinet.”
M. Folgat was shown in, and found him still under the effects of the
terrible scene he had undergone in the morning. He had said nothing to
his wife that he did not really think; but he was distressed at having
said it under such circumstances. And yet he felt a kind of relief; for,
to tell the truth, he felt as if the horrible doubts which he had kept
secret so many years had vanished as soon as they were spoken out. When
he saw M. Folgat, he asked in a sadly-changed voice,--
“Well?”
The young advocate repeated in detail the account given by the
marchioness; but he added what the latter had not been able to mention,
because she did not know it, the desperate resolution which Jacques had
formed. At this revelation the marquis looked utterly overcome.
“The unhappy man!” he cried. “And I accused him of--He thought of
killing himself!”
“And we had a great trouble, M. Magloire, and myself,” added M. Folgat,
“to overcome his resolution, great trouble to make him understand,
that never, under any circumstances, ought an innocent man to think of
committing suicide.”
A big tear rolled down the furrowed cheek of the old gentleman; and he
murmured,--
“Ah! I have been cruelly unjust. Poor, unhappy child!”