He laughed, the wretched man! with that laugh which is the last utterance of despair. And then he replied,--

"I say that there are circ.u.mstances which upset our reason; unheard-of circ.u.mstances, which could make one doubt of one's self. I say that every thing accuses me, that every thing overwhelms me, that every thing turns against me. I say, that if I were in M. Galpin's place, and if he were in mine, I should act just as he does."

"That is insanity!" cried Dionysia.

But Jacques de Boiscoran did not hear her. All the bitterness of the last days rose within him: he turned red, and became excited. At last, with gasping vice, he broke forth,--

"Establish my innocence! Ah! that is easily said. But how? No, I am not guilty: but a crime has been committed; and for this crime justice will have a culprit. If it is not I who fired at Count Claudieuse, and set Valpinson on fire, who is it? 'Where were you,' they ask me, 'at the time of the murder?' Where was I? Can I tell it? To clear myself is to accuse others. And if I should be mistaken? Or if, not being mistaken, I should be unable to prove the truthfulness of my accusation? The murderer and the incendiary, of course, took all possible precautions to escape detection, and to let the punishment fall upon me. I was warned beforehand. Ah, if we could always foresee, could know beforehand! How can I defend myself? On the first day I said, 'Such a charge cannot reach me: it is a cloud that a breath will scatter.' Madman that I was!

The cloud has become an avalanche, and I may be crushed. I am neither a child nor a coward; and I have always met phantoms face to face. I have measured the danger, and I know it is fearful."

Dionysia shuddered. She cried,--

"What will become of us?"

This time M. de Boiscoran heard her, and was ashamed of his weakness.

But, before he could master his feelings, the young girl went on, saying,--

"But never mind. These are idle thoughts. Truth soars invincible, unchangeable, high above all the ablest calculations and the most skilful combinations. Jacques, you must tell the truth, the whole truth, without subterfuge or concealment."

"I can do so no longer," murmured he.

"Is it such a terrible secret?"

"It is improbable."

Dionysia looked at him almost with fear. She did not recognize his old face, nor his eye, nor the tone of his voice. She drew nearer to him, and taking his hand between her own small white hands, she said,--

"But you can tell it to me, your friend, your"--

He trembled, and, drawing back, he said,--

"To you less than anybody else."

And, feeling how mortifying such an answer must be, he added,--

"Your mind is too pure for such wretched intrigues. I do not want your wedding-dress to be stained by a speck of that mud into which they have thrown me."

Was she deceived? No; but she had the courage to seem to be deceived.

She went on quietly,--

"Very well, then. But the truth will have to be told sooner or later."

"Yes, to M. Magloire."

"Well, then, Jacques, write down at once what you mean to tell him. Here are pen and ink: I will carry it to him faithfully."

"There are things, Dionysia, which cannot be written."

She felt she was beaten; she understood that nothing would ever bend that iron will, and yet she said once more,--

"But if I were to beseech you, Jacques, by our past and our future, by that great and eternal love which you have sworn?"

"Do you really wish to make my prison hours a thousand times harder than they are? Do you want to deprive me of my last remnant of strength and of courage? Have you really no confidence in me any longer? Could you not believe me a few days more?"

He paused. Somebody knocked at the door; and almost at the same time Blangin the jailer called out through the wicket,--

"Time is pa.s.sing. I want to be down stairs when they relieve guard. I am running a great risk. I am a father of a family."

"Go home now, Dionysia," said Jacques eagerly, "go home. I cannot think of your being seen here."

Dionysia had paid dear enough to know that she was quite safe; still she did not object. She offered her brow to Jacques, who touched it with his lips; and half dead, holding on to the walls, she went back to the jailer's little room. They had made up a bed for her, and she threw herself on it, dressed as she was, and remained there, immovable, as if she had been dead, overcome by a kind of stupor which deprived her even of the faculty of suffering.

It was bright daylight, it was eight o'clock, when she felt somebody pulling her sleeve. The jailer's wife said to her,--

"My dear young lady, this would be a good time for you to slip away.

Perhaps they will wonder to see you alone in the street; but they will think you are coming home from seven o'clock ma.s.s."

Without saying a word, Dionysia jumped down, and in a moment she had arranged her hair and her dress. Then Blangin came, rather troubled at not seeing her leave the house; and she said to him, giving him one of the thousand-franc rolls that were still in her bag,--

"This is for you: I want you to remember me, if I should need you again."

And, dropping her veil over her face, she went away.

XI.

Baron Chandore had had one terrible night in his life, every minute of which he had counted by the ebbing pulse of his only son.

The evening before, the physicians had said,--

"If he lives this night, he may be saved."

At daybreak he had expired.

Well, the old gentleman had hardly suffered more during that fatal night than he did this night, during which Dionysia was away from the house.

He knew very well that Blangin and his wife were honest people, in spite of their avarice and their covetousness; he knew that Jacques de Boiscoran was an honourable man.

But still, during the whole night, his old servant heard him walk up and down his room; and at seven o'clock in the morning he was at the door, looking anxiously up and down the street. Towards half-past seven, M.

Folgat came up; but he hardly wished him good-morning, and he certainly did not hear a word of what the lawyer told him to rea.s.sure him. At last, however, the old man cried,--

"Ah, there she is!"

He was not mistaken. Dionysia was coming round the corner. She came up to the house in feverish haste, as if she had known that her strength was at an end, and would barely suffice to carry her to the door.

Grandpapa Chandore met her with a kind of fierce joy, pressed her in his arms, and said over and over again,--

"O Dionysia! Oh, my darling child, how I have suffered! How long you have been! But it is all over now. Come, come, come!"