“My father stays quietly in Paris, devoted to his pursuits and usual pleasures. My mother has come down to Sauveterre. She is here now; and she has been told that I am at liberty to receive visitors: but in vain. I was hoping for her yesterday; but the wretch who is accused of a crime is no longer her son! She never came. No one came. Henceforth I stand alone in the world; and now you see why I have a right to dispose of myself.”
M. Folgat did not think for a moment of discussing the point. It would have been useless. Despair never reasons. He only said,—
“You forget Miss Chandore, sir.”
Jacques turned crimson all over, and he murmured, trembling in all his limbs,—
“Dionysia!”
“Yes, Dionysia,” said the young advocate. “You forget her courage, her devotion, and all she has done for you. Can you say that she abandons and denies you,—she who set aside all her reserve and her timidity for your sake, and came and spent a whole night in this prison? She was risking nothing less than her maidenly honor; for she might have been discovered or betrayed. She knew that very well, nevertheless she did not hesitate.”
“Ah! you are cruel, sir,” broke in Jacques.
And pressing the lawyer’s arm hard, he went on,—
“And do you not understand that her memory kills me, and that my misery is all the greater as I know but too well what bliss I am losing? Do you not see that I love Dionysia as woman never was loved before? Ah, if my life alone was at stake! I, at least, I have to make amends for a great wrong; but she—Great God, why did I ever come across her path?”
He remained for a moment buried in thought; then he added,—