“For I must save M. de Boiscoran. I will and I must do it. He has too nice a house. Well, we shall see each other at Sauveterre.”
It struck four o’clock. M. Folgat left the café immediately after Goudar, and went down the river to University Street. He was anxious to see the marquis and the marchioness.
“The marchioness is resting,” said the valet; “but the marquis is in his cabinet.”
M. Folgat was shown in, and found him still under the effects of the terrible scene he had undergone in the morning. He had said nothing to his wife that he did not really think; but he was distressed at having said it under such circumstances. And yet he felt a kind of relief; for, to tell the truth, he felt as if the horrible doubts which he had kept secret so many years had vanished as soon as they were spoken out. When he saw M. Folgat, he asked in a sadly-changed voice,—
“Well?”
The young advocate repeated in detail the account given by the marchioness; but he added what the latter had not been able to mention, because she did not know it, the desperate resolution which Jacques had formed. At this revelation the marquis looked utterly overcome.
“The unhappy man!” he cried. “And I accused him of—He thought of killing himself!”
“And we had a great trouble, M. Magloire, and myself,” added M. Folgat, “to overcome his resolution, great trouble to make him understand, that never, under any circumstances, ought an innocent man to think of committing suicide.”
A big tear rolled down the furrowed cheek of the old gentleman; and he murmured,—
“Ah! I have been cruelly unjust. Poor, unhappy child!”