“I cannot stand this uncertainty a minute longer. I am going to the prison.”
“And I will go with you, dear mother,” declared Dionysia.
But such a proceeding was hardly suitable. M. de Chandore opposed it, and was supported by M. Folgat, as well as by M. Seneschal.
“We might at least send somebody,” suggested the two aunts timidly.
“That is a good idea,” replied M. de Chandore.
He rang the bell; and old Anthony came in. He had established himself the evening before in Sauveterre, having heard that the preliminary investigation was finished.
As soon as he had been told what they wanted him to do, he said,—
“I shall be back in half an hour.”
He nearly ran down the steep street, hastened along National Street, and then climbed up more slowly Castle Street. When M. Blangin, the keeper, saw him appear, he turned very pale; for M. Blangin had not slept since Dionysia had given him the seventeen thousand francs. He, once upon a time the special friend of all gendarmes, now trembled when one of them entered the jail. Not that he felt any remorse about having betrayed his duty; oh, no! but he feared discovery.
More than ten times he had changed the hiding-place of his precious stocking; but, wherever he put it, he always fancied that the eyes of his visitors were riveted upon that very spot. He recovered, however, from his fright when Anthony told him his errand, and replied in the most civil manner,—