Within an Inch of His Life Part 42

"I understand now why Miss Chandore promised us that we should know the truth. M. de Boiscoran and she have formerly corresponded with each other in cipher."

Grandpapa Chandore raised his hands to heaven.

"Just think of these little girls! Here we are utterly helpless without her, as she alone can translate those hieroglyphics for you."

If Dionysia had hoped, by accompanying the marchioness on her visits, to escape from the sad presentiments that oppressed her, she was cruelly disappointed. They went to M. Seneschal's house first; but the mayor's wife was by no means calculated to give courage to others in an hour of peril. She could do nothing but embrace alternately Jacques's mother and Dionysia, and, amid a thousand sobs, tell them over and over again, that she looked upon one as the most unfortunate of mothers, and upon the other as the most unfortunate of betrothed maidens.

"Does the woman think Jacques is guilty?" thought Dionysia, and felt almost angry.

And that was not all. As they returned home, and pa.s.sed the house which had been provisionally taken for Count Claudieuse and his family, they heard a little boy calling out,--

"O mamma, come quick! Here are the murderer's mother and his sweetheart."

Thus the poor girl came home more downcast than before. Immediately, however, her maid, who had evidently been on the lookout for her return, told her that her grandfather and the lawyer from Paris were waiting for her in the baron's study. She hastened there without stopping to take off her bonnet; and, as soon as she came in, M. de Chandore handed her Jacques's letter, saying,--

"Here is your answer."

She could not repress a little cry of delight, and rapidly touched the letter with her lips, repeating,--

"Now we are safe, we are safe!"

M. de Chandore smiled at the happiness of his granddaughter.

"But, Miss Hypocrite," he said, "it seems you had great secrets to communicate to M. de Boiscoran, since you resorted to cipher, like arch conspirators. M. Folgat and I tried to read it; but it was all Greek to us."

Now only the young lady remembered M. Folgat's presence, and, blushing deeply, she said,--

"Latterly Jacques and I had been discussing the various methods to which people resort who wish to carry on a secret correspondence: this led him to teach me one of the ways. Two correspondents choose any book they like, and each takes a copy of the same edition. The writer looks in his volume for the words he wants, and numbers them; his correspondent finds them by the aid of these numbers. Thus, in Jacques's letters, the numbers followed by a colon refer to the pages, and the others to the order in which the words come."

"Ah, ah!" said Grandpapa Chandore, "I might have looked a long time."

"It is a very simple method," replied Dionysia, "very well known, and still quite safe. How could an outsider guess what book the correspondents have chosen? Then there are other means to mislead indiscreet people. It may be agreed upon, for instance, that the numbers shall never have their apparent value, or that they shall vary according to the day of the month or the week. Thus, to-day is Monday, the second day of the week. Well, I have to deduct one from each number of a page, and add one to each number of a word."

"And you will be able to make it all out?" asked M. de Chandore.

"Certainly, dear grandpapa. Ever since Jacques explained it to me, I have tried to learn it as a matter of course. We have chose a book which I am very fond of, Cooper's 'Spy;' and we amused ourselves by writing endless letters. Oh! it is very amusing, and it takes time, because one does not always find the words that are needed, and then they have to be spelled letter by letter."

"And M. de Boiscoran has a copy of Cooper's novels in his prison?" asked M. Folgat.

"Yes, sir. M. Mechinet told me so. As soon as Jacques found he was to be kept in close confinement, he asked for some of Cooper's novels, and M.

Galpin, who is so cunning, so smart, and so suspicious, went himself and got them for him. Jacques was counting upon me."

"Then, dear child, go and read your letter, and solve the riddle," said M. de Chandore.

When she had left, he said to his companion,--

"How she loves him! How she loves this man Jacques! Sir, if any thing should happen to him, she would die."

M. Folgat made no reply; and nearly an hour pa.s.sed, before Dionysia, shut up in her room, had succeeded in finding all the words of which Jacques's letter was composed. But when she had finished, and came back to her grandfather's study, her youthful face expressed the most profound despair.

"This is horrible!" she said.

The same idea crossed, like a sharp arrow, the minds of M. de Chandore and M. Folgat. Had Jacques confessed?

"Look, read yourself!" said Dionysia, handing them the translation.

Jacques wrote,--

"Thanks for your letter, my darling. A presentiment had warned me, and I had asked for a copy of Cooper.

"I understand but too well how grieved you must be at seeing me kept in prison without my making an effort to establish my innocence. I kept silence, because I hoped the proof of my innocence would come from outside. I see that it would be madness to hope so any longer, and that I must speak. I shall speak. But what I have to say is so very serious, that I shall keep silence until I shall have had an opportunity of consulting with some one in whom I can feel perfect confidence. Prudence alone is not enough now: skill also is required. Until now I felt secure, relying on my innocence. But the last examination has opened my eyes, and I now see the danger to which I am exposed.

"I shall suffer terribly until the day when I can see a lawyer. Thank my mother for having brought one. I hope he will pardon me, if I address myself first to another man. I want a man who knows the country and its customs.

"That is why I have chosen M. Magloire; and I beg you will tell him to hold himself ready for the day on which, the examination being completed, I shall be relieved from close confinement.

"Until then, nothing can be done, nothing, unless you can obtain that the case be taken out of M. G-----'s hands, and be given to some one else. That man acts infamously. He wants me to be guilty. He would himself commit a crime in order to charge me with it, and there is no kind of trap he does not lay for me. I have the greatest difficulty in controlling myself every time I see this man enter my cell, who was my friend, and now is my accuser.

"Ah, my dear ones! I pay a heavy price for a fault of which I have been, until now, almost unconscious.

"And you, my only friend, will you ever be able to forgive me the terrible anxiety I cause you?

"I should like to say much more; but the prisoner who has handed me your note says I must be quick, and it takes so much time to pick out the words!

"J."

When the letter had been read, M. Folgat and M. de Chandore sadly turned their heads aside, fearing lest Dionysia should read in their eyes the secret of their thoughts. But she felt only too well what it meant.

"You cannot doubt Jacques, grandpapa!" she cried.

"No," murmured the old gentleman feebly, "no."

"And you, M. Folgat--are you so much hurt by Jacques's desire to consult another lawyer?"

"I should have been the first, madam, to advise him to consult a native."

Dionysia had to summon all her energy to check her tears.

"Yes," she said, "this letter is terrible; but how can it be otherwise?

Don't you see that Jacques is in despair, that his mind wanders after all these fearful shocks?"

Somebody knocked gently at the door.

"It is I," said the marchioness.

Grandpapa Chandore, M. Folgat, and Dionysia looked at each other for a moment; and then the advocate said,--

"The situation is too serious: we must consult the marchioness." He rose to open the door. Since the three friends had been holding the council in the baron's study, a servant had come five times in succession to knock at the door, and tell them that the soup was on the table.