“Never mind. I am not willing to die.”
“Say that you will not die alone.”
“Be it so.”
“To confess every thing would never save you, but would most assuredly ruin me. Is that what you want? Would your fate appear less cruel to you, if there were two victims instead of one?”
He stopped her by a threatening gesture, and cried,—
“Are you always the same? I am sinking, I am drowning; and she calculates, she bargains! And she said she loved me!”
“Jacques!” broke in the countess.
And drawing close up to him, she said,—
“Ah! I calculate, I bargain? Well, listen. Yes, it is true. I did value my reputation as an honest woman more highly, a thousand times more, than my life; but, above my life and my reputation, I valued you. You are drowning, you say. Well, then, let us flee. One word from you, and I leave all,—honor, country, family, husband, children. Say one word, and I follow you without turning my head, without a regret, without a remorse.”
Her whole body was shivering from head to foot; her bosom rose and fell; her eyes shone with unbearable brilliancy.
Thanks to the violence of her action, her dress, put on in great haste, had opened, and her dishevelled hair flowed in golden masses over her bosom and her shoulders, which matched the purest marble in their dazzling whiteness.
And in a voice trembling with pent-up passion, now sweet and soft like a tender caress, and now deep and sonorous like a bell, she went on,—
“What keeps us? Since you have escaped from prison, the greatest difficulty is overcome. I thought at first of taking our girl, your girl, Jacques; but she is very ill; and besides a child might betray us. If we go alone, they will never overtake us. We will have money enough, I am sure, Jacques. We will flee to those distant countries which appear in books of travels in such fairy-like beauty. There, unknown, forgotten, unnoticed, our life will be one unbroken enjoyment. You will never again say that I bargain. I will be yours, entirely, and solely yours, body and soul, your wife, your slave.”
She threw her head back, and with half-closed eyes, bending with her whole person toward him, she said in melting tones,—
“Say, Jacques, will you? Jacques!”
He pushed her aside with a fierce gesture. It seemed to him almost a sacrilege that she also, like Dionysia, should propose to him to flee.
“Rather the galleys!” he cried.
She turned deadly pale; a spasm of rage convulsed her features; and drawing back, stiff and stern, she said,—
“What else do you want?”
“Your help to save me,” he replied.
“At the risk of ruining myself?”
He made no reply.
Then she, who had just now been all humility, raised herself to her full height, and in a tone of bitterest sarcasm said slowly,—
“In other words, you want me to sacrifice myself, and at the same time all my family. For your sake? Yes, but even more for Miss Chandore’s sake. And you think that it is quite a simple thing. I am the past to you, satiety, disgust: she is the future to you, desire, happiness. And you think it quite natural that the old love should make a footstool of her love and her honor for the new love? You think little of my being disgraced, provided she be honored; of my weeping bitterly, if she but smile? Well, no, no! it is madness in you to come and ask me to save you, so that you may throw yourself into the arms of another. It is madness, when in order to tear you from Dionysia, I am ready to ruin myself, provided only that you be lost to her forever.”
“Wretch!” cried Jacques.
She looked at him with a mocking air, and her eyes beamed with infernal audacity.
“You do not know me yet,” she cried. “Go, speak, denounce me! M. Folgat no doubt has told you how I can deny and defend myself.”
Maddened by indignation, and excited to a point where reason loses its power over us, Jacques de Boiscoran moved with uplifted hand towards the countess, when suddenly a voice said,—
“Do not strike that woman!”
Jacques and the countess turned round, and uttered, both at the same instant, the same kind of sharp, terrible cry, which must have been heard a great distance.
In the frame of the door stood Count Claudieuse, a revolver in his hand, and ready to fire.
He looked as pale as a ghost; and the white flannel dressing-gown which he had hastily thrown around him hung like a pall around his lean limbs. The first cry uttered by the countess had been heard by him on the bed on which he lay apparently dying. A terrible presentiment had seized him. He had risen from his bed, and, dragging himself slowly along, holding painfully to the balusters, he had come down.
“I have heard all,” he said, casting crushing looks at both the guilty ones.
The countess uttered a deep, hoarse sigh, and sank into a chair. But Jacques drew himself up, and said,—
“I have insulted you terribly, sir. Avenge yourself.”
The count shrugged his shoulders.
“Great God! You would allow me to be condemned for a crime which I have not committed. Ah, that would be the meanest cowardice.”
The count was so feeble that he had to lean against the door-post.
“Would it be cowardly?” he asked. “Then, what do you call the act of that miserable man who meanly, disgracefully robs another man of his wife, and palms off his own children upon him? It is true you are neither an incendiary nor an assassin. But what is fire in my house in comparison with the ruin of all my faith? What are the wounds in my body in comparison with that wound in my heart, which never can heal? I leave you to the court, sir.”
Jacques was terrified; he saw the abyss opening before him that was to swallow him up.
“Rather death,” he cried,—“death.”
And, baring his breast, he said,—
“But why do you not fire, sir? Why do you not fire? Are you afraid of blood? Shoot! I have been the lover of your wife: your youngest daughter is my child.”
The count lowered his weapon.
“The courts of justice are more certain,” he said. “You have robbed me of my honor: now I want yours. And, if you cannot be condemned without it, I shall say, I shall swear, that I recognized you. You shall go to the galleys, M. de Boiscoran.”
He was on the point of coming forward; but his strength was exhausted, and he fell forward, face downward, and arms outstretched.
Overcome with horror, half mad, Jacques fled.
XXIX.
M. Folgat had just risen. Standing before his mirror, hung up to one of the windows in his room, he had just finished shaving himself, when the door was thrown open violently, and old Anthony appeared quite beside himself.
“Ah, sir, what a terrible thing!”
“What?”
“Run away, disappeared!”
“Who?”
“Master Jacques!”
The surprise was so great, that M. Folgat nearly let his razor drop: he said, however, peremptorily,—
“That is false!”
“Alas, sir,” replied the old servant, “everybody is full of it in town. All the details are known. I have just seen a man who says he met master last night, about eleven o’clock, running like a madman down National Street.”
“That is absurd.”
“I have only told Miss Dionysia so far, and she sent me to you. You ought to go and make inquiry.”
The advice was not needed. Wiping his face hastily, the young advocate went to dress at once. He was ready in a moment; and, having run down the stairs, he was crossing the passage when he heard somebody call his name. He turned round, and saw Dionysia making him a sign to come into the boudoir in which she was usually sitting. He did so.
Dionysia and the young advocate alone knew what a desperate venture Jacques had undertaken the night before. They had not said a word about it to each other; but each had noticed the preoccupation of the other. All the evening M. Folgat had not spoken ten words, and Dionysia had, immediately after dinner, gone up to her own room.
“Well?” she asked.
“The report, madam, must be false,” replied the advocate.
“Who knows?”
“His evasion would be a confession of his crime. It is only the guilty who try to escape; and M. de Boiscoran is innocent. You can rest quite assured, madam, it is not so. I pray you be quiet.”
Who would not have pitied the poor girl at that moment? She was as white as her collar, and trembled violently. Big tears ran over her eyes; and at each word a violent sob rose in her throat.
“You know where Jacques went last night?” she asked again.
“Yes.”
She turned her head a little aside, and went on, in a hardly audible voice,—
“He went to see once more a person whose influence over him is, probably, all powerful. It may be that she has upset him, stunned him. Might she not have prevailed upon him to escape from the disgrace of appearing in court, charged with such a crime?”
“No, madam, no!”
“This person has always been Jacques’s evil genius. She loves him, I am sure. She must have been incensed at the idea of his becoming my husband. Perhaps, in order to induce him to flee, she has fled with him.”
“Ah! do not be afraid, madam: the Countess Claudieuse is incapable of such devotion.”
Dionysia threw herself back in utter amazement; and, raising her wide-open eyes to the young advocate, she said with an air of stupefaction,—
“The Countess Claudieuse?”
M. Folgat saw his indiscretion. He had been under the impression that Jacques had told his betrothed every thing; and her very manner of speaking had confirmed him in his conviction.
“Ah, it is the Countess Claudieuse,” she went on,—“that lady whom all revere as if she were a saint. And I, who only the other day marvelled at her fervor in praying,—I who pitied her with all my heart,—I—Ah! I now see what they were hiding from me.”
Distressed by the blunder which he had committed, the young advocate said,—
“I shall never forgive myself, madam, for having mentioned that name in your presence.”
She smiled sadly.
“Perhaps you have rendered me a great service, sir. But, I pray, go and see what the truth is about this report.”
M. Folgat had not walked down half the street, when he became aware that something extraordinary must really have happened. The whole town was in uproar. People stood at their doors, talking. Groups here and there were engaged in lively discussions.
Hastening his steps, he was just turning into National Street, when he was stopped by three or four gentlemen, whose acquaintance he had, in some way or other, been forced to make since he was at Sauveterre.
“Well, sir?” said one of these amiable friends, “your client, it seems, is running about nicely.”
“I do not understand,” replied M. Folgat in a tone of ice.
“Why? Don’t you know your client has run off?”
“Are you quite sure of that?”
“Certainly. The wife of a workman whom I employ was the person through whom the escape became known. She had gone on the old ramparts to cut grass there for her goat; and, when she came to the prison wall, she saw a big hole had been made there. She gave at once the alarm; the guard came up; and they reported the matter immediately to the commonwealth attorney.”
For M. Folgat the evidence was not satisfactory yet. He asked,—
“Well? And M. de Boiscoran?”
“Cannot be found. Ah, I tell you, it is just as I say. I know it from a friend who heard it from a clerk at the mayor’s office. Blangin the jailer, they say, is seriously implicated.”
“I hope soon to see you again,” said the young advocate, and left him abruptly.
The gentleman seemed to be very grievously offended at such treatment; but the young advocate paid no attention to him, and rapidly crossed the New-Market Square.
He was become apprehensive. He did not fear an evasion, but thought there might have occurred some fearful catastrophe. A hundred persons, at least, were assembled around the prison-doors, standing there with open mouths and eager eyes; and the sentinels had much trouble in keeping them back.
M. Folgat made his way through the crowd, and went in.
In the court-yard he found the commonwealth attorney, the chief of police, the captain of the gendarmes, M. Seneschal, and, finally, M. Galpin, all standing before the janitor’s lodge in animated discussion. The magistrate looked paler than ever, and was, as they called it in Sauveterre, in bull-dog humor. There was reason for it.
He had been informed as promptly as M. Folgat, and had, with equal promptness, dressed, and hastened to the prison. And all along his way, unmistakable evidence had proved to him that public opinion was fiercely roused against the accused, but that it was as deeply excited against himself.
On all sides he had been greeted by ironical salutations, mocking smiles, and even expressions of condolence at the loss of his prisoner. Two men, whom he suspected of being in close relations with Dr. Seignebos, had even murmured, as he passed by them,—
“Cheated, Mr. Bloodhound.”
He was the first to notice the young advocate, and at once said to him,—
“Well, sir, do you come for news?”
But M. Folgat was not the man to be taken in twice the same day. Concealing his apprehensions under the most punctilious politeness, he replied,—
“I have heard all kinds of reports; but they do not affect me. M. de Boiscoran has too much confidence in the excellency of his cause and the justice of his country to think of escaping. I only came to confer with him.”
“And you are right!” exclaimed M. Daubigeon. “M. de Boiscoran is in his cell, utterly unaware of all the rumors that are afloat. It was Trumence who has run off,—Trumence, the light-footed. He was kept in prison for form’s sake only, and helped the keeper as a kind of assistant jailer. He it is who has made a hole in the wall, and escaped, thinking, no doubt, that the heavens are a better roof than the finest jail.”
A little distance behind the group stood Blangin, the jailer, affecting a contrite and distressed air.
“Take the counsel to the prisoner Boiscoran,” said M. Galpin dryly, fearing, perhaps, that M. Daubigeon might regale the public with all the bitter epigrams with which he persecuted him privately. The jailer bowed to the ground, and obeyed the order; but, as soon as he was alone with M. Folgat in the porch of the building, he blew up his cheek, and then tapped it, saying,—
“Cheated all around.”
Then he burst out laughing. The young advocate pretended not to understand him. It was but prudent that he should appear ignorant of what had happened the night before, and thus avoid all suspicion of a complicity which substantially did not exist.
“And still,” Blangin went on, “this is not the end of it yet. The gendarmes are all out. If they should catch my poor Trumence! That man is such a fool, the most stupid judge would worm his secret out of him in five minutes. And then, who would be in a bad box?”
M. Folgat still made no reply; but the other did not seem to mind that much. He continued,—
“I only want to do one thing, and that is to give up my keys as soon as possible. I am tired of this profession of jailer. Besides, I shall not be able to stay here much longer. This escape has put a flea into the ear of the authorities, and they are going to give me an assistant, a former police sergeant, who is as bad as a watchdog. Ah! the good days of M. de Boiscoran are over: no more stolen visits, no more promenades. He is to be watched day and night.”
Blangin had stopped at the foot of the staircase to give all these explanations.
“Let us go up,” he said now, as M. Folgat showed signs of growing impatience.
He found Jacques lying on his bed, all dressed; and at the first glance he saw that a great misfortune had happened.
“One more hope gone?” he asked.
The prisoner raised himself up with difficulty, and sat up on the side of his bed; then he replied in a voice of utter despair,—
“I am lost, and this time hopelessly.”
“Oh!”
“Just listen!”
The young advocate could not help shuddering as he heard the account given by Jacques of what had happened the night before. And when it was finished, he said,—
“You are right. If Count Claudieuse carries out his threat, it may be a condemnation.”
“It must be a condemnation, you mean. Well, you need not doubt. He will carry out his threat.”
And shaking his head with an air of desolation, he added,—
“And the most formidable part of it is this: I cannot blame him for doing it. The jealousy of husbands is often nothing more than self-love. When they find they have been deceived, their vanity is offended; but their heart remains whole. But in this case it is very different. He not only loved his wife, he worshipped her. She was his happiness, life itself. When I took her from him, I robbed him of all he had,—yes, of all! I never knew what adultery meant till I saw him overcome with shame and rage. He was left without any thing in a moment. His wife had a lover: his favorite daughter was not his own! I suffer terribly; but it is nothing, I am sure, in comparison with what he suffers. And you expect, that, holding a weapon in his hand, he should not use it? It is a treacherous, dishonest weapon, to be sure; but have I been frank and honest? It would be a mean, ignoble vengeance, you will say; but what was the offence? In his place, I dare say, I should do as he does.”
M. Folgat was thunderstruck.
“But after that,” he asked, “when you left the house?”
Jacques passed his hand mechanically over his forehead, as if to gather his thoughts, and then went on,—
“After that I fled precipitately, like a man who has committed a crime. The garden-door was open, and I rushed out. I could not tell you with certainty in what direction I ran, through what streets I passed. I had but one fixed idea,—to get away from that house as quickly and as far as possible. I did not know what I was doing. I went, I went. When I came to myself, I was many miles away from Sauveterre, on the road to Boiscoran. The instinct of the animal within me had guided me on the familiar way to my house. At the first moment I could not comprehend how I had gotten there. I felt like a drunkard whose head is filled with the vapors of alcohol, and who, when he is roused, tries to remember what has happened during his intoxication. Alas! I recalled the fearful reality but too soon. I knew that I ought to go back to prison, that it was an absolute necessity; and yet I felt at times so weary, so exhausted, that I was afraid I should not be able to get back. Still I did reach the prison. Blangin was waiting for me, all anxiety; for it was nearly two o’clock. He helped me to get up here. I threw myself, all dressed as I was, on my bed, and I fell fast asleep in an instant. But my sleep was a miserable sleep, broken by terrible dreams, in which I saw myself chained to the galleys, or mounting the scaffold with a priest by my side; and even at this moment I hardly know whether I am awake or asleep, and whether I am not still suffering under a fearful nightmare.”
M. Folgat could hardly conceal a tear. He murmured,—
“Poor man!”
“Oh, yes, poor man indeed!” repeated Jacques. “Why did I not follow my first inspiration last night when I found myself on the high-road. I should have gone on to Boiscoran, I should have gone up stairs to my room, and there I should have blown out my brains. I should then suffer no more.”
Was he once more giving himself up to that fatal idea of suicide?
“And your parents,” said M. Folgat.
“My parents! And do you think they will survive my condemnation?”
“And Miss Chandore?”
He shuddered, and said fiercely,—
“Ah! it is for her sake first of all that I ought to make an end of it. Poor Dionysia! Certainly she would grieve terribly when she heard of my suicide. But she is not twenty yet. My memory would soon fade in her heart; and weeks growing into months, and months into years, she would find comfort. To live means to forget.”
“No! You cannot really think what you are saying!” broke in M. Folgat. “You know very well that she—she would never forget you!”
A tear appeared in the eyes of the unfortunate man, and he said in a half-smothered voice,—
“You are right. I believe to strike me down means to strike her down also. But do you think what life would be after a condemnation? Can you imagine what her sensations would be, if day after day she had to say to herself, ‘He whom alone I love upon earth is at the galleys, mixed up with the lowest of criminals, disgraced for life, dishonored.’ Ah! death is a thousand times preferable.”
“Jacques, M. de Boiscoran, do you forget that you have given me your word of honor?”
“The proof that I have not forgotten it is that you see me here. But, never mind, the day is not very far off when you will see me so wretched that you yourself will be the first to put a weapon into my hands.”
But the young advocate was one of those men whom difficulties only excite and stimulate, instead of discouraging. He had already recovered somewhat from the first great shock, and he said,—
“Before you throw down your hand, wait, at least, till the game is lost. You are not sentenced yet. Far from it! You are innocent, and there is divine justice. Who tells us that Count Claudieuse will really give evidence? We do not even know whether he has not, at this moment, drawn his last breath upon earth!”
Jacques leaped up as if in a spasm, and turning deadly pale, exclaimed,—
“Ah, don’t say that! That fatal thought has already occurred to me, that perhaps he did not rise again last night. Would to God that that be not so! for then I should but too surely be an assassin. He was my first thought when I awoke. I thought of sending out to make inquiries. But I did not dare do it.”
M. Folgat felt his heart oppressed with most painful anxiety, like the prisoner himself. Hence he said at once,—
“We cannot remain in this uncertainty. We can do nothing as long as the count’s fate is unknown to us; for on his fate depends ours. Allow me to leave you now. I will let you know as soon as I hear any thing positive. And, above all, keep up your courage, whatever may happen.”
The young advocate was sure of finding reliable information at Dr. Seignebos’s house. He hastened there; and, as soon as he entered, the physician cried,—
“Ah, there you are coming at last! I give up twenty of my worst patients to see you, and you keep me waiting forever. I was sure you would come. What happened last night at Count Claudieuse’s house?”
“Then you know”—
“I know nothing. I have seen the results; but I do not know the cause. The result was this: last night, about eleven o’clock, I had just gone to bed, tired to death, when, all of a sudden, somebody rings my bell as if he were determined to break it. I do not like people to perform so violently at my door; and I was getting up to let the man know my mind, when Count Claudieuse’s servant rushed in, pushing my own servant unceremoniously aside, and cried out to me to come instantly, as his master had just died.”
“Great God!”
“That is what I said, because, although I knew the count was very ill, I did not think he was so near death.”
“Then, he is really dead?”
“Not at all. But, if you interrupt me continually, I shall never be able to tell you.”
And taking off his spectacles, wiping them, and putting them on again, he went on,—
“I was dressed in an instant, and in a few minutes I was at the house. They asked me to go into the sitting-room down stairs. There I found, to my great amazement, Count Claudieuse, lying on a sofa. He was pale and stiff, his features fearfully distorted, and on his forehead a slight wound, from which a slender thread of blood was trickling down. Upon my word I thought it was all over.”
“And the countess?”
“The countess was kneeling by her husband; and, with the help of her women, she was trying to resuscitate him by rubbing him, and putting hot napkins on his chest. But for these wise precautions she would be a widow at this moment; whilst, as it is, he may live a long time yet. This precious count has a wonderful tenacity of life. We, four of us, then took him and carried him up stairs, and put him to bed, after having carefully warmed it first. He soon began to move; he opened his eyes; and a quarter of an hour later he had recovered his consciousness, and spoke readily, though with a somewhat feeble voice. Then, of course, I asked what had happened, and for the first time in my life I saw the marvellous self-possession of the countess forsake her. She stammered pitifully, looking at her husband with a most frightened air, as if she wished to read in his eyes what she should say. He undertook to answer me; but he, also was evidently very much embarrassed. He said, that being left alone, and feeling better than usual, he had taken it into his head to try his strength. He had risen, put on his dressing-gown, and gone down stairs; but, in the act of entering the room, he had become dizzy, and had fallen so unfortunately as to hurt his forehead against the sharp corner of a table. I affected to believe it, and said, ‘You have done a very imprudent thing, and you must not do it again.’ Then he looked at his wife in a very singular way, and replied, ‘Oh! you can be sure I shall not commit another imprudence. I want too much to get well. I have never wished it so much as now.’”
M. Folgat was on the point of replying; but the doctor closed his lips with his hand, and said,—
“Wait, I have not done yet.”
And, manipulating his spectacles most assiduously, he added,—
“I was just going home, when suddenly a chambermaid came in with a frightened air to tell the countess that her older daughter, little Martha, whom you know, had just been seized with terrible convulsions. Of course I went to see her, and found her suffering from a truly fearful nervous attack. It was only with great difficulty I could quiet her; and when I thought she had recovered, suspecting that there might be some connection between her attack and the accident that had befallen her father, I said in the most paternal tone I could assume, ‘Now my child, you must tell me what was the matter.’ She hesitated a while, and then she said, ‘I was frightened.’—‘Frightened at what, my darling?’ She raised herself on her bed, trying to consult her mother’s eyes; but I had placed myself between them, so that she could not see them. When I repeated my question, she said, ‘Well, you see, I had just gone to bed, when I heard the bell ring. I got up, and went to the window to see who could be coming so late. I saw the servant go and open the door, a candlestick in her hand, and come back to the house, followed by a gentleman, whom I did not know.’ The countess interrupted her here, saying, ‘It was a messenger from the court, who had been sent to me with an urgent letter.’ But I pretended not to hear her; and, turning still to Martha, I asked again, ‘And it was this gentleman who frightened you so?’—‘Oh, no!’—‘What then?’ Out of the corner of my eye I was watching the countess. She seemed to be terribly embarrassed. Still she did not dare to stop her daughter. ‘Well, doctor,’ said the little girl, ‘no sooner had the gentleman gone into the house than I saw one of the statues under the trees there come down from its pedestal, move on, and glide very quietly along the avenue of lime-trees.’”
M. Folgat trembled.
“Do you remember, doctor,” he said, “the day we were questioning little Martha, she said she was terribly frightened by the statutes in the garden?”
“Yes, indeed!” replied the doctor. “But wait a while. The countess promptly interrupted her daughter, saying to me, ‘But, dear doctor, you ought to forbid the child to have such notions in her head. At Valpinson she never was afraid, and even at night, quite alone, and without a light, all over the house. But here she is frightened at every thing; and, as soon as night comes, she fancies the garden is full of ghosts. You are too big now, Martha, to think that statues, which are made of stone, can come to life, and walk about.’ The child was shuddering.
“‘The other times, mamma,’ she said, ‘I was not quite sure; but this time I am sure. I wanted to go away from the window, and I could not do it. It was too strong for me: so that I saw it all, saw it perfectly. I saw the statue, the ghost, come up the avenue slowly and cautiously, and then place itself behind the last tree, the one that is nearest to the parlor window. Then I heard a loud cry, then nothing more. The ghost remained all the time behind the tree, and I saw all it did: it turned to the left and the right; it drew itself up; and it crouched down. Then, all of a sudden, two terrible cries; but, O mamma, such cries! Then the ghost raised one arm, this way, and all of a sudden it was gone; but almost the same moment another one came out, and then disappeared, too.’”
M. Folgat was utterly overcome with amazement.
“Oh, these ghosts!” he said.
“You suspect them, do you? I suspected them at once. Still I pretended to turn Martha’s whole story into a joke, and tried to explain to her how the darkness made us liable to have all kinds of optical illusions; so that when I left, and a servant was sent with a candle to light me on my way, the countess was quite sure that I had no suspicion. I had none; but I had more than that. As soon as I entered the garden, therefore, I dropped a piece of money which I had kept in my hand for the purpose. Of course I set to work looking for it at the foot of the tree nearest to the parlor-window, while the servant helped with his candle. Well, M. Folgat, I can assure you that it was not a ghost that had been walking about under the trees; and, if the footmarks which I found there were made by a statue, that statue must have enormous feet, and wear huge iron-shod shoes.”
The young advocate was prepared for this. He said,—
“There is no doubt: the scene had a witness.”
XXX.
“What scene? What witness? That is what I wanted to hear from you, and why I was waiting so impatiently for you,” said Dr. Seignebos to M. Folgat. “I have seen and stated the results: now it is for you to give me the cause.”
Nevertheless, he did not seem to be in the least surprised by what the young advocate told him of Jacques’s desperate enterprise, and of the tragic result. As soon as he had heard it all, he exclaimed,—
“I thought so: yes, upon my word! By racking my brains all night long, I had very nearly guessed the whole story. And who, in Jacques’s place, would not have been desirous to make one last effort? But certainly fate is against him.”
“Who knows?” said M. Folgat. And, without giving the doctor time to reply, he went on,—
“In what are our chances worse than they were before? In no way. We can to-day, just as well as we could yesterday, lay our hands upon those proofs which we know do exist, and which would save us. Who tells us that at this moment Sir Francis Burnett and Suky Wood may not have been found? Is your confidence in Goudar shaken?”
“Oh, as to that, not at all! I saw him this morning at the hospital, when I paid my usual visit; and he found an opportunity to tell me that he was almost certain of success.”
“Well?”
“I am persuaded Cocoleu will speak. But will he speak in time? That is the question. Ah, if we had but a month’s time, I should say Jacques is safe. But our hours are counted, you know. The court will be held next week. I am told the presiding judge has already arrived, and M. Gransiere has engaged rooms at the hotel. What do you mean to do if nothing new occurs in the meantime?”
“M. Magloire and I will obstinately adhere to our plan of defence.”
“And if Count Claudieuse keeps his promise, and declares that he recognized Jacques in the act of firing at him?”
“We shall say he is mistaken.”
“And Jacques will be condemned.”
“Well,” said the young advocate.
And lowering his voice, as if he did not wish to be overheard, he added,—
“Only the sentence will not be a fatal sentence. Ah, do not interrupt me, doctor, and upon your life, upon Jacques’s life, do not say a word of what I am going to tell you. A suspicion which should cross M. Galpin’s mind would destroy my last hope; for it would give him an opportunity of correcting a blunder which he has committed, and which justifies me in saying to you, ‘Even if the count should give evidence, even if sentence should be passed, nothing would be lost yet.’”
He had become animated; and his accent and his gestures made you feel that he was sure of himself.
“No,” he repeated, “nothing would be lost; and then we should have time before us, while waiting for a second trial, to hunt up our witnesses, and to force Cocoleu to tell the truth. Let the count say what he chooses, I like it all the better: I shall thus be relieved of my last scruples. It seemed to me odious to betray the countess, because I thought the most cruelly punished would be the count. But, if the count attacks us, we are on the defence; and public opinion will be on our side. More than that, they will admire us for having sacrificed our honor to a woman’s honor, and for having allowed ourselves to be condemned rather than to give up the name of her who has given herself to us.”
The physician did not seem to be convinced; but the young advocate paid no attention. He went on,—
“No, our success in a second trial would be almost certain. The scene in Mautrec Street has been seen by a witness: his iron-shod shoes have left, as you say, their marks under the linden-trees nearest to the parlor-window, and little Martha has watched his movements. Who can this witness be unless it is Trumence? Well, we shall lay hands upon him. He was standing so that he could see every thing, and hear every word. He will tell what he saw and what he heard. He will tell how Count Claudieuse called out to M. de Boiscoran, ‘No, I do not want to kill you! I have a surer vengeance than that: you shall go to the galleys.’”
Dr. Seignebos sadly shook his head as he said,—
“I hope your expectations may be realized, my dear sir.”
But they came again for the doctor the third time to-day. Shaking hands with the young advocate, he parted with his young friend, who after a short visit to M. Magloire, whom he thought it his duty to keep well informed of all that was going on, hastened to the house of M. de Chandore. As soon as he looked into Dionysia’s face, he knew that he had nothing to tell her; that she knew all the facts, and how unjust her suspicions had been.
“What did I tell you, madam?” he said very modestly.
She blushed, ashamed at having let him see the secret doubts which had troubled her so sorely, and, instead of replying, she said,—
“There are some letters for you, M. Folgat. They have carried them up stairs to your room.”
He found two letters,—one from Mrs. Goudar, the other from the agent who had been sent to England.
The former was of no importance. Mrs. Goudar only asked him to send a note, which she enclosed, to her husband.
The second, on the other hand, was of the very greatest interest. The agent wrote,—
“Not without great difficulties, and especially not without a heavy outlay of money, I have at length discovered Sir Francis Burnett’s brother in London, the former cashier of the house of Gilmour and Benson.
“Our Sir Francis is not dead. He was sent by his father to Madras, to attend to very important financial matters, and is expected back by the next mail steamer. We shall be informed of his arrival on the very day on which he lands.
“I have had less trouble in discovering Suky Wood’s family. They are people very well off, who keep a sailor’s tavern in Folkstone. They had news from their daughter about three weeks ago; but, although they profess to be very much attached to her, they could not tell me accurately where she was just now. All they know is, that she has gone to Jersey to act as barmaid in a public house.
“But that is enough for me. The island is not very large; and I know it quite well, having once before followed a notary public there, who had run off with the money of his clients. You may consider Suky as safe.
“When you receive this letter, I shall be on my way to Jersey.
“Send me money there to the Golden Apple Hotel, where I propose to lodge. Life is amazingly dear in London; and I have very little left of the sum you gave me on parting.”
Thus, in this direction, at least, every thing was going well.
Quite elated by this first success, M. Folgat put a thousand-franc note into an envelope, directed it as desired, and sent it at once to the post-office. Then he asked M. de Chandore to lend him his carriage, and went out to Boiscoran.
He wanted to see Michael, the tenant’s son, who had been so prompt in finding Cocoleu, and in bringing him into town. He found him, fortunately, just coming home, bringing in a cart loaded with straw; and, taking him aside, he asked him,—
“Will you render M. de Boiscoran a great service?”
“What must I do?” replied the young man in a tone of voice which said, better than all protestations could have done, that he was ready to do any thing.
“Do you know Trumence?”
“The former basket-weaver of Tremblade?”
“Exactly.”
“Upon my word, don’t I know him? He has stolen apples enough from me, the scamp! But I don’t blame him so much, after all; for he is a good fellow, in spite of that.”
“He was in prison at Sauveterre.”
“Yes, I know; he had broken down a gate near Brechy and”—
“Well, he has escaped.”
“Ah, the scamp!”
“And we must find him again. They have put the gendarmes on his track; but will they catch him?”
Michael burst out laughing.
“Never in his life!” he said. “Trumence will make his way to Oleron, where he has friends; the gendarmes will be after him in vain.”
M. Folgat slapped Michael amicably on the shoulder, and said,—
“But you, if you choose? Oh! do not look angry at me. We do not want to have him arrested. All I want you to do is to hand him a letter from me, and to bring me back his answer.”
“If that is all, then I am your man. Just give me time to change my clothes, and to let father know, and I am off.”
Thus M. Folgat began, as far as in him lay, to prepare for future action, trying to counteract all the cunning measures of the prosecution by such combinations as were suggested to him by his experience and his genius.
Did it follow from this, that his faith in ultimate success was strong enough to make him speak of it to his most reliable friends, even, say to Dr. Seignebos, to M. Magloire, or to good M. Mechinet?
No; for, bearing all the responsibility on his own shoulders, he had carefully weighed the contrary chances of the terrible game in which he proposed to engage, and in which the stakes were the honor and the life of a man. He knew, better than anybody else, that a mere nothing might destroy all his plans, and that Jacques’s fate was dependent on the most trivial accident.
Like a great general on the eve of a battle, he managed to control his feelings, affecting, for the benefit of others, a confidence which he did not really feel, and allowing no feature of his face to betray the great anxiety which generally kept him awake more than half the night.
And certainly it required a character of marvellous strength to remain impassive and resolute under such circumstances.
Everybody around him was in despair, and gave up all hope.
The house of M. de Chandore, once so full of life and merriment, had become as silent and sombre as a tomb.
The last two months had made of M. de Chandore an old man in good earnest. His tall figure had begun to stoop, and he looked bent and broken. He walked with difficulty, and his hands began to tremble.
The Marquis de Boiscoran had been hit even harder. He, who only a few weeks before looked robust and hearty, now appeared almost decrepit. He did not eat, so to say, and did not sleep. He became frightfully thin. It gave him pain to utter a word.
As to the marchioness, the very sources of life seemed to have been sapped within her. She had had to hear M. Magloire say that Jacques’s safety would have been put beyond all doubt if they had succeeded in obtaining a change of venue, or an adjournment of the trial. And it was her fault that such a change had not been applied for. That thought was death to her. She had hardly strength enough left to drag herself every day as far as the jail to see her son.
The two Misses Lavarande had to bear all the practical difficulties arising from this sore trial: they went and came, looking as pale as ghosts, whispering in a low voice, and walking on tiptoe, as if there had been a death in the house.
Dionysia alone showed greater energy as the troubles increased. She did not indulge in much hope.
“I know Jacques will be condemned,” she said to M. Folgat. But she said, also, that despair belonged to criminals only, and that the fatal mistake for which Jacques was likely to suffer ought to inspire his friends with nothing but indignation and thirst for vengeance.
And, while her grandfather and the Marquis de Boiscoran went out as little as possible, she took pains to show herself in town, astonishing the ladies “in good society” by the way in which she received their false expressions of sympathy. But it was evident that she was only held up by a kind of feverish excitement, which gave to her cheeks their bright color, to her eyes their brilliancy, and to her voice its clear, silvery ring. Ah! for her sake mainly, M. Folgat longed to end this uncertainty which is so much more painful than the greatest misfortune.
The time was drawing near.
As Dr. Seignebos had announced, the president of the tribunal, M. Domini, had already arrived in Sauveterre.
He was one of those men whose character is an honor to the bench, full of the dignity of his profession, but not thinking himself infallible, firm without useless rigor, cold and still kind-hearted, having no other mistress but Justice, and knowing no other ambition but that of establishing the truth.
He had examined Jacques, as he was bound to do; but the examination had been, as it always is, a mere formality, and had led to no result.
The next step was the selection of a jury.
The jurymen had already begun to arrive from all parts of the department. They lodged at the Hotel de France, where they took their meals in common in the large back dining-room, which is always specially reserved for their use.
In the afternoon one might see them, looking grave and thoughtful, take a walk on the New-Market Square, or on the old ramparts.
M. Gransiere, also, had arrived. But he kept strictly in retirement in his room at the Hotel de la Poste, where M. Galpin every day spent several hours in close conference with him.
“It seems,” said Mechinet in confidence to M. Folgat,—“it seems they are preparing an overwhelming charge.”
The day after, Dionysia opened “The Sauveterre Independent,” and found in it an announcement of the cases set down for each day,—