Within an Inch of His Life Part 71

Jacques did not seem to hear him. He went on,--

"Friends? Oh, yes! I had friends in my days of prosperity. There was M.

Galpin and M. Daubigeon: they were my friends. One has become my judge, the most cruel and pitiless of judges; and the other, who is commonwealth attorney, has not even made an effort to come to my a.s.sistance. M. Magloire also used to be a friend of mine, and told me a hundred times, that I could count upon him as I count upon myself, and that was my reason to choose him as my counsel; and, when I endeavored to convince him of my innocence, he told me I lied."

Once more the eminent advocate of Sauveterre tried to protest; but it was in vain.

"Relations!" continued Jacques with a voice trembling with indignation--"oh, yes! I have relations, a father and a mother.

Where are they when their son, victimized by unheard-of fatality, is struggling in the meshes of a most odious and infamous plot?

"My father stays quietly in Paris, devoted to his pursuits and usual pleasures. My mother has come down to Sauveterre. She is here now; and she has been told that I am at liberty to receive visitors: but in vain.

I was hoping for her yesterday; but the wretch who is accused of a crime is no longer her son! She never came. No one came. Henceforth I stand alone in the world; and now you see why I have a right to dispose of myself."

M. Folgat did not think for a moment of discussing the point. It would have been useless. Despair never reasons. He only said,--

"You forget Miss Chandore, sir."

Jacques turned crimson all over, and he murmured, trembling in all his limbs,--

"Dionysia!"

"Yes, Dionysia," said the young advocate. "You forget her courage, her devotion, and all she has done for you. Can you say that she abandons and denies you,--she who set aside all her reserve and her timidity for your sake, and came and spent a whole night in this prison? She was risking nothing less than her maidenly honor; for she might have been discovered or betrayed. She knew that very well, nevertheless she did not hesitate."

"Ah! you are cruel, sir," broke in Jacques.

And pressing the lawyer's arm hard, he went on,--

"And do you not understand that her memory kills me, and that my misery is all the greater as I know but too well what bliss I am losing? Do you not see that I love Dionysia as woman never was loved before? Ah, if my life alone was at stake! I, at least, I have to make amends for a great wrong; but she--Great G.o.d, why did I ever come across her path?"

He remained for a moment buried in thought; then he added,--

"And yet she, also, did not come yesterday. Why? Oh! no doubt they have told her all. They have told her how I came to be at Valpinson the night of the crime."

"You are mistaken, Jacques," said M. Magloire. "Miss Chandore knows nothing."

"Is it possible?"

"M. Magloire did not speak in her presence," added M. Folgat; "and we have bound over M. de Chandore to secrecy. I insisted upon it that you alone had the right to tell the truth to Miss Dionysia."

"Then how does she explain it to herself that I am not set free?"

"She cannot explain it."

"Great G.o.d! she does not also think I am guilty?"

"If you were to tell her so yourself, she would not believe you."

"And still she never came here yesterday."

"She could not. Although they told her nothing, your mother had to be told. The marchioness was literally thunderstruck. She remained for more than an hour unconscious in Miss Dionysia's arms. When she recovered her consciousness, her first words were for you; but it was then too late to be admitted here."

When M. Folgat mentioned Miss Dionysia's name, he had found the surest, and perhaps the only means to break Jacques's purpose.

"How can I ever sufficiently thank you, sir?" asked the latter.

"By promising me that you will forever abandon that fatal resolve which you had formed," replied the young advocate. "If you were guilty, I should be the first to say, 'Be it so!' and I would furnish you with the means. Suicide would be an expiation. But, as you are innocent, you have no right to kill yourself: suicide would be a confession."

"What am I to do?"

"Defend yourself. Fight."

"Without hope?"

"Yes, even without hope. When you faced the Prussians, did you ever think of blowing out your brains? No! and yet you knew that they were superior in numbers, and would conquer, in all probability. Well, you are once more in face of the enemy; and even if you were certain of being conquered, that is to say, of being condemned, and it was the day before you should have to mount the scaffold, I should still say, 'Fight. You must live on; for up to that hour something may happen which will enable us to discover the guilty one.' And, if no such event should happen, I should repeat, nevertheless, 'You must wait for the executioner in order to protest from the scaffold against the judicial murder, and once more to affirm your innocence.'"

As M. Folgat uttered these words, Jacques had gradually recovered his bearing; and now he said,--

"Upon my honor, sir, I promise you I will hold out to the bitter end."

"Well!" said M. Magloire,--"very well!"

"First of all," replied M. Folgat, "I mean to recommence, for our benefit the investigation which M. Galpin has left incomplete. To-night your mother and I will leave for Paris. I have come to ask you for the necessary information, and for the means to explore your house in Vine Street, to discover the friend whose name you a.s.sumed, and the servant who waited upon you."

The bolts were drawn as he said this; and at the open wicket appeared Blangin's rubicund face.

"The Marchioness de Boiscoran," he said, "is in the parlor, and begs you will come down as soon as you have done with these gentlemen."

Jacques turned very pale.

"My mother," he murmured. Then he added, speaking to the jailer,--

"Do not go yet. We have nearly done."

His agitation was too great: he could not master it. He said to the two lawyers,--

"We must stop here for to-day. I cannot think now."

But M. Folgat had declared he would leave for Paris that very night; and he was determined to do so. He said, therefore,--

"Our success depends on the rapidity of our movements. I beg you will let me insist upon your giving me at once the few items of information which I need for my purposes."

Jacques shook his head sadly. He began,--

"The task is out of your power, sir."

"Nevertheless, do what my colleague asks you," urged M. Magloire.

Without any further opposition, and, who knows? Perhaps with a secret hope which he would not confess to himself, Jacques informed the young advocate of the most minute details about his relations to the Countess Claudieuse. He told him at what hour she used to come to the house, what roads she took, and how she was most commonly dressed. The keys of the house were at Boiscoran, in a drawer which Jacques described. He had only to ask Anthony for them. Then he mentioned how they might find out what had become of that Englishman whose name he had borrowed.

Sir Francis Burnett had a brother in London. Jacques did not know his precise address; but he knew he had important business-relations with India, and had, once upon a time, been cashier in the great house of Gilmour and Benson.