"That is true, but the injustice of his implication was easily shown, and he was set at liberty."
"Yes, Agricola: but not till he had lain a month in prison; and that has furnished the motive of the person who advised you to conceal yourself! A month in prison! Good heavens! Agricola, think of that! and your mother."
These words made a powerful impression upon Agricola. He took up the letter and again read it attentively.
"And the man who has been lurking all this evening about the house?" proceeded she. "I constantly recall that circumstance, which cannot be naturally accounted for. Alas! what a blow it would be for your father, and poor mother, who is incapable of earning anything. Are you not now their only resource? Oh! consider, then, what would become of them without you—without your labor!"
"It would indeed be terrible," said Agricola, impatiently casting the letter upon the table. "What you have said concerning Remi is too true. He was as innocent as I am: yet an error of justice, an involuntary error though it be, is not the less cruel. But they don't commit a man without hearing him."
"But they arrest him first, and hear him afterwards," said Mother Bunch, bitterly; "and then, after a month or two, they restore him his liberty. And if he have a wife and children, whose only means of living is his daily labor, what becomes of them while their only supporter is in prison? They suffer hunger, they endure cold, and they weep!"
At these simple and pathetic words, Agricola trembled.
"A month without work," he said, with a sad and thoughtful air. "And my mother, and father, and the two young ladies who make part of our family until the arrival in Paris of their father, Marshal Simon. Oh! you are right. That thought, in spite of myself, affrights me!"
"Agricola!" exclaimed the girl impetuously; "suppose you apply to M. Hardy; he is so good, and his character is so much esteemed and honored, that, if he offered bail for you, perhaps they would give up their persecution?"
"Unfortunately," replied Agricola, "M. Hardy is absent; he is on a journey with Marshal Simon."