“Not another word, madam: your hope already is an insult to me. You ought surely to know that by my profession, as well as by my oath, I am bound to be as silent as the very cell in which the prisoners are kept. If I, the clerk, were to betray the secret of a criminal prosecution”—
Dionysia trembled like an aspen-leaf; but her mind remained clear and decided. She said,—
“You would rather let an innocent man perish.”
“Madam!”
“You would let an innocent man be condemned, when by a single word you could remove the mistake of which he is the victim? You would say to yourself, ‘It is unlucky; but I have sworn not to speak’? And you would see him with quiet conscience mount the scaffold? No, I cannot believe that! No, that cannot be true!”
“I told you, madam, I believe in M. de Boiscoran’s innocence.”
“And you refuse to aid me in establishing his innocence? O God! what ideas men form of their duty! How can I move you? How can I convince you? Must I remind you of the torture this man suffers, whom they charge with being an assassin? Must I tell you what horrible anguish we suffer, we, his friends, his relatives?—how his mother weeps, how I weep, I, his betrothed! We know he is innocent; and yet we cannot establish his innocence for want of a friend who would aid us, who would pity us!”
In all his life the clerk had not heard such burning words. He was moved to the bottom of his heart. At last he asked, trembling,—
“What do you want me to do, madam?”
“Oh! very little, sir, very little,—just to send M. de Boiscoran ten lines, and to bring us his reply.”