“And I, madam, I swear I will keep my promise.”
But the countess stopped her, and said, making a supreme effort over herself,—
“No: I shall try to save Jacques without making conditions. Let him be yours. He loves you, and you were ready to sacrifice your life for his sake. He forsakes me; but I sacrifice my honor to him. Farewell!”
And hastening to the door, while Dionysia returned to her friends, she summoned the priest from Brechy.
II.
M. Daubigeon, the commonwealth attorney, learned that morning from his chief clerk what had happened, and how the proceedings in the Boiscoran case were necessarily null and void on account of a fatal error in form. The counsel of the defence had lost no time, and, after spending the whole night in consultation, had early that morning presented their application for a new trial to the court.
The commonwealth attorney took no pains to conceal his satisfaction.
“Now,” he cried, “this will worry my friend Galpin, and clip his wings considerably; and yet I had called his attention to the lines of Horace, in which he speaks of Phaeton’s sad fate, and says,—
‘Terret ambustus Phaeton avaras Spes.’
But he would not listen to me, forgetting, that, without prudence, force is a danger. And there he is now, in great difficulty, I am sure.”