“If Jean will promise me to be quiet,” said the rector, “and not attempt to injure himself, and to behave properly while we are with him, I will ask to have him unbound; but the least violation of his promise will reflect on me.”
“I do so want to move as I please, dear Monsieur Bonnet,” said the criminal, his eyes moistening with tears, “that I give you my word to do as you wish.”
The rector went out, and returned with the jailer, and the jacket was taken off.
“You won’t kill me to-night, will you?” said the turnkey.
Jean made no answer.
“Poor brother!” said Denise, opening a basket which had just passed through a rigorous examination. “Here are some of the things you like; I dare say they don’t feed you for the love of God.”
She showed him some fruit, gathered as soon as the rector had told her she could go to the jail, and a galette his mother had immediately baked for him. This attention, which reminded him of his boyhood, the voice and gestures of his sister, the presence of his mother and the rector, brought on a reaction and he burst into tears.
“Ah! Denise,” he said, “I have not had a good meal for six months. I eat only when driven to it by hunger.”
The mother and sister went out and then returned; with the natural housekeeping spirit of such women, who want to give their men material comfort, they soon had a supper for their poor child. In this the officials helped them; for an order had been given to do all that could with safety be done for the condemned man. The des Vanneaulx had contributed, with melancholy hope, toward the comfort of the man from whom they still expected to recover their inheritance. Thus poor Jean-Francois had a last glimpse of family joys, if joys they could be called under such circumstances.
“Is my appeal rejected?” he said to Monsieur Bonnet.