“What are, after all, professional actors in comparison with these men!
Here is one who pretends having reached Sauveterre only this morning,
and who knows the country as well as Trumence himself. He has not been
here twelve hours, and he speaks already of M. de Chandore’s little
garden-gate.”
“Oh! I can explain that circumstance now, although, at first, it
surprised me very much. When I told Goudar the whole story, I no doubt
mentioned the little gate in connection with Mechinet.”
Whilst they were chatting thus, they had reached the upper end of
National Street. Here they stopped; and M. Magloire said,--
“One word before we part. Are you quite resolved to see the Countess
Claudieuse?”
“I have promised.”
“What do you propose telling her?”
“I do not know. That depends upon how she receives me.”
“As far as I know her, she will, upon looking at the note, merely order
you out.”
“Who knows! At all events, I shall not have to reproach myself for
having shrunk from a step which in my heart I thought it my duty to
take.”
“Whatever may happen, be prudent, and do not allow yourself to get
angry. Remember that a scene with her would compel us to change our
whole line of defence, and that that is the only one which promises any
success.”
“Oh, do not fear!”
Thereupon, shaking hands once more, they parted, M. Magloire returning
to his house, and M. Folgat going up the street. It struck half-past
five, and the young advocate hurried on for fear of being too late. He
found them waiting for him to go to dinner; but, as he entered the room,
he forgot all his excuses in his painful surprise at the mournful and
dejected appearance of the prisoner’s friends and relatives.
“Have we any bad news?” he asked with a hesitating voice.
“The worst we had to fear,” replied the Marquis de Boiscoran. “We had
all foreseen it; and still, as you see, it has surprised us all, like a
clap of thunder.”