Within an Inch of His Life Part 116

The countess raised her suddenly and quickly, and holding her hands in her own, looked at her for more than a minute without saying a word, but with heaving bosom and trembling lips. At last she asked in a voice which was so deeply affected, that it was hardly intelligible.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Induce Count Claudieuse to retract."

The countess shook her head.

"It would be useless to try. You do not know the count. He is a man of iron. You might tear his flesh inch by inch with hot iron pincers, and he would not take back one of his words. You cannot conceive what he has suffered, nor the depth of the hatred, the rage, and the thirst of vengeance, which have acc.u.mulated in his heart. It was to torture me that he brought me here to his bedside. Only five minutes ago he told me that he died content, since Jacques was declared guilty, and condemned through his evidence."

She was conquered: her energy was exhausted, and tears came to her eyes.

"He has been so cruelly tried!" she went on. "He loved me to distraction; he loved nothing in the world but me. And I--Ah, if we could know, if we could foresee! No, I shall never be able to induce him to retract."

Dionysia almost forgot her own great grief.

"Nor do I expect you to obtain that favor," she said very gently.

"Who, then?"

"The priest from Brechy. He will surely find words to shake even the firmest resolution. He can speak in the name of that G.o.d, who, even on the cross, forgave those who crucified Him."

One moment longer the countess hesitated; and then, overcoming finally the last rebellious impulses of her pride, she said,--

"Well, I will call the priest."

"And I, madam, I swear I will keep my promise."

But the countess stopped her, and said, making a supreme effort over herself,--

"No: I shall try to save Jacques without making conditions. Let him be yours. He loves you, and you were ready to sacrifice your life for his sake. He forsakes me; but I sacrifice my honor to him. Farewell!"

And hastening to the door, while Dionysia returned to her friends, she summoned the priest from Brechy.

II.

M. Daubigeon, the commonwealth attorney, learned that morning from his chief clerk what had happened, and how the proceedings in the Boiscoran case were necessarily null and void on account of a fatal error in form.

The counsel of the defence had lost no time, and, after spending the whole night in consultation, had early that morning presented their application for a new trial to the court.

The commonwealth attorney took no pains to conceal his satisfaction.

"Now," he cried, "this will worry my friend Galpin, and clip his wings considerably; and yet I had called his attention to the lines of Horace, in which he speaks of Phaeton's sad fate, and says,--

'Terret ambustus Phaeton avaras Spes.'

But he would not listen to me, forgetting, that, without prudence, force is a danger. And there he is now, in great difficulty, I am sure."

And at once he made haste to dress, and to go and see M. Galpin in order to hear all the details accurately, as he told his clerk, but, in reality, in order to enjoy to his heart's content the discomfiture of the ambitious magistrate.

He found him furious, and ready to tear his hair.

"I am disgraced," he repeated: "I am ruined; I am lost. All my prospects, all my hopes, are gone. I shall never be forgiven for such an oversight."

To look at M. Daubigeon, you would have thought he was sincerely distressed.

"Is it really true," he said with an air of a.s.sumed pity,--"is it really true, what they tell me, that this unlucky mistake was made by you?"

"By me? Yes, indeed! I forgot those wretched details which a scholar knows by heart. Can you understand that? And to say that no one noticed my inconceivable blindness! Neither the first court of inquiry, nor the attorney-general himself, nor the presiding judge, ever said a word about it. It is my fate. And that is to be the result of my labors.

Everybody, no doubt, said, 'Oh! M. Galpin has the case in hand; he knows all about it: no need to look after the matter when such a man has taken hold of it.' And here I am. Oh! I might kill myself."

"It is all the more fortunate," replied M. Daubigeon, "that yesterday the case was hanging on a thread."

The magistrate gnashed his teeth, and replied,--

"Yes, on a thread, thanks to M. Domini! whose weakness I cannot comprehend, and who did not know at all, or who was not willing to know, how to make the most of the evidence. But it was M. Gransiere's fault quite as much. What had he to do with politics to drag them into the affair? And whom did he want to hit? No one else but M. Magloire, the man whom everybody respects in the whole district, and who had three warm personal friends among the jurymen. I foresaw it, and I told him where he would get into trouble. But there are people who will not listen. M. Gransiere wants to be elected himself. It is a fancy, a monomania of our day: everybody wants to be a deputy. I wish Heaven would confound all ambitious men!"

For the first time in his life, and no doubt for the last time also, the commonwealth attorney rejoiced at the misfortune of others. Taking savage pleasure in turning the dagger in his poor friend's wounds, he said,--

"No doubt M. Folgat's speech had something to do with it."

"Nothing at all."

"He was brilliantly successful."

"He took them by surprise. It was nothing but a big voice, and grand, rolling sentences."

"But still"--

"And what did he say, after all? That the prosecution did not know the real secret of the case. That is absurd!"

"The new judges may not think so, however."

"We shall see."

"This time M. de Boiscoran's defence will be very different. He will spare n.o.body. He is down now, and cannot fall any lower."

"That may be. But he also risks having a less indulgent jury, and not getting off with twenty years."

"What do his counsel say?"

"I do not know. But I have just sent my clerk to find out; and, if you choose to wait"--

M. Daubigeon did wait, and he did well; for M. Mechinet came in very soon after, with a long face for the world, but inwardly delighted.

"Well?" asked M. Galpin eagerly.

He shook his head, and said in a melancholy tone of voice,--