When M. Folgat mentioned Miss Dionysia’s name, he had found the surest, and perhaps the only means to break Jacques’s purpose.
“How can I ever sufficiently thank you, sir?” asked the latter.
“By promising me that you will forever abandon that fatal resolve which you had formed,” replied the young advocate. “If you were guilty, I should be the first to say, ‘Be it so!’ and I would furnish you with the means. Suicide would be an expiation. But, as you are innocent, you have no right to kill yourself: suicide would be a confession.”
“What am I to do?”
“Defend yourself. Fight.”
“Without hope?”
“Yes, even without hope. When you faced the Prussians, did you ever think of blowing out your brains? No! and yet you knew that they were superior in numbers, and would conquer, in all probability. Well, you are once more in face of the enemy; and even if you were certain of being conquered, that is to say, of being condemned, and it was the day before you should have to mount the scaffold, I should still say, ‘Fight. You must live on; for up to that hour something may happen which will enable us to discover the guilty one.’ And, if no such event should happen, I should repeat, nevertheless, ‘You must wait for the executioner in order to protest from the scaffold against the judicial murder, and once more to affirm your innocence.’”
As M. Folgat uttered these words, Jacques had gradually recovered his bearing; and now he said,—
“Upon my honor, sir, I promise you I will hold out to the bitter end.”
“Well!” said M. Magloire,—“very well!”