The marquis seemed to be amazed.
“That is unheard of!” he said.
And, when his wife had finished, he added,—
“That was the reason why Jacques was so very angry when you spoke of inviting the Countess Claudieuse, and why he told you, that, if he saw her enter at one door, he would walk out of the other. We did not understand his aversion.”
“Alas! it was not aversion. Jacques only obeyed at that time the cunning lessons given him by the countess.”
In less than one minute the most contradictory resolutions seemed to flit across the marquis’s face. He hesitated, and at last he said,—
“Whatever can be done to make up for my inaction, I will do. I will go to Sauveterre. Jacques must be saved. M. de Margeril is all-powerful. Go to him. I permit it. I beg you will do it.”
The eyes of the marchioness filled with tears, hot tears, the first she had shed since the beginning of this scene.
“Do you not see,” she asked, “that what you wish me to do is now impossible? Every thing, yes, every thing in the world but that. But Jacques and I—we are innocent. God will have pity on us. M. Folgat will save us.”
XIX.