“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 passed, 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.