When Dionysia, after leaving the Countess Claudieuse, came back to
Jacques’s parents and his friends, she said, radiant with hope,--
“Now victory is on our side!”
Her grandfather and the Marquis de Boiscoran urged her to explain;
but she refused to say any thing, and only later, towards evening, she
confessed to M. Folgat what she had done with the countess, and that it
was more than probable that the count would, before he died, retract his
evidence.
“That alone would save Jacques,” said the young advocate.
But his hope only encouraged him to make still greater efforts; and, all
overcome as he was by his labors and emotions of the trial, he spent
the night in Grandpapa Chandore’s study, preparing with M. Magloire the
application they proposed to make for a new trial.
They finished only when it was already broad daylight: so he did not
care to go to bed, and installed himself in a large easy-chair for the
purpose of getting a few hours’ rest.
He had, however, not slept more than an hour, when old Anthony roused
him to tell him that there was an unknown man down stairs who asked to
see him instantly.
M. Folgat rubbed his eyes, and at once went down: in the passage he
found himself face to face with a man of some fifty years, of rather
suspicious appearance, who wore his mustache and his chin-beard, and was
dressed in a tight coat and large trousers, such as old soldiers affect.
“You are M. Folgat?” asked this man.
“Yes.”
“Well, I--I am the agent whom friend Goudar sent to England.”