“I believe he is in danger.”
“Jacques,” murmured the old marchioness,—“my son!”
“I said in danger,” repeated the advocate; “but I ought to have said, he is in a strange, almost incredible, unnatural position.”
“Let us hear,” said the marchioness.
The lawyer was evidently very much embarrassed; and he looked with unmistakable distress, first at Dionysia, and then at the two old aunts. But nobody noticed this, and so he said,—
“I must ask to be left alone with these gentlemen.”
In the most docile manner the Misses Lavarande rose, and took their niece and Jacques’s mother with them: the latter was evidently near fainting. As soon as the door was shut, Grandpapa Chandore, half mad with grief, exclaimed,—
“Thanks, M. Magloire, thanks for having given me time to prepare my poor child for the terrible blow. I see but too well what you are going to say. Jacques is guilty.”
“Stop,” said the advocate: “I have said nothing of the kind. M. de Boiscoran still protests energetically that he is innocent; but he states in his defence a fact which is so entirely improbable, so utterly inadmissible”—
“But what does he say?” asked M. Seneschal.