The night was clear, but not clear enough for the clerk to see how very pale Dionysia was.
“Well, then, I must see M. de Boiscoran: I must speak to him.”
She expected the clerk to start, to cry out, to protest. Far from it: he said in the quietest tone,—
“To be sure; but how?”
“Blangin the keeper, and his wife, keep their places only because they give them a support. Why might I not offer them, in return for an interview with M. de Boiscoran, the means to go and live in the country?”
“Why not?” said the clerk.
And in a lower voice, replying to the voice of his conscience, he went on,—
“The jail in Sauveterre is not at all like the police-stations and prisons of larger towns. The prisoners are few in number; they are hardly guarded. When the doors are shut, Blangin is master within.”
“I will go and see him to-morrow,” declared Dionysia.
There are certain slopes on which you must glide down. Having once yielded to Dionysia’s suggestions, Mechinet had, unconsciously, bound himself to her forever.