“There must have been five or six hundred.”
“Even more, perhaps.”
“That is to say, a very big sum of money.”
“An enormous one.”
“What can that mean, Holy Virgin! And what have we to expect?”
“And brother asking us to keep his secret!”
“He looked as pale as his shirt, and terribly distressed.”
“Miss Dionysia was crying like a Magdalen.”
It was so. Dionysia, as long as she had been uncertain of the result, had felt in her heart that Jacques’s safety depended on her courage and her presence of mind. But now, assured of success, she could no longer control her excitement; and, overcome by the effort, she had sunk down on a chair and burst out into tears.
The clerk shut the door, and looked at her for some time; then, having overcome his own emotions, he said to her,—