第101章 XVII.(3)

"Great God! she does not also think I am guilty?""If you were to tell her so yourself, she would not believe you.""And still she never came here yesterday.""She could not. Although they told her nothing, your mother had to be told. The marchioness was literally thunderstruck. She remained for more than an hour unconscious in Miss Dionysia's arms. When she recovered her consciousness, her first words were for you; but it was then too late to be admitted here."When M. Folgat mentioned Miss Dionysia's name, he had found the surest, and perhaps the only means to break Jacques's purpose.

"How can I ever sufficiently thank you, sir?" asked the latter.

"By promising me that you will forever abandon that fatal resolve which you had formed," replied the young advocate. "If you were guilty, I should be the first to say, 'Be it so!' and I would furnish you with the means. Suicide would be an expiation. But, as you are innocent, you have no right to kill yourself: suicide would be a confession.""What am I to do?"

"Defend yourself. Fight."

"Without hope?"

"Yes, even without hope. When you faced the Prussians, did you ever think of blowing out your brains? No! and yet you knew that they were superior in numbers, and would conquer, in all probability. Well, you are once more in face of the enemy; and even if you were certain of being conquered, that is to say, of being condemned, and it was the day before you should have to mount the scaffold, I should still say, 'Fight. You must live on; for up to that hour something may happen which will enable us to discover the guilty one.' And, if no such event should happen, I should repeat, nevertheless, 'You must wait for the executioner in order to protest from the scaffold against the judicial murder, and once more to affirm your innocence.' "As M. Folgat uttered these words, Jacques had gradually recovered his bearing; and now he said,--"Upon my honor, sir, I promise you I will hold out to the bitter end.""Well!" said M. Magloire,--"very well!"

"First of all," replied M. Folgat, "I mean to recommence, for our benefit the investigation which M. Galpin has left incomplete.

To-night your mother and I will leave for Paris. I have come to ask you for the necessary information, and for the means to explore your house in Vine Street, to discover the friend whose name you assumed, and the servant who waited upon you."The bolts were drawn as he said this; and at the open wicket appeared Blangin's rubicund face.

"The Marchioness de Boiscoran," he said, "is in the parlor, and begs you will come down as soon as you have done with these gentlemen."Jacques turned very pale.

"My mother," he murmured. Then he added, speaking to the jailer,--"Do not go yet. We have nearly done."

His agitation was too great: he could not master it. He said to the two lawyers,--"We must stop here for to-day. I cannot think now."But M. Folgat had declared he would leave for Paris that very night;and he was determined to do so. He said, therefore,--"Our success depends on the rapidity of our movements. I beg you will let me insist upon your giving me at once the few items of information which I need for my purposes."Jacques shook his head sadly. He began,--"The task is out of your power, sir."

"Nevertheless, do what my colleague asks you," urged M. Magloire.

Without any further opposition, and, who knows? Perhaps with a secret hope which he would not confess to himself, Jacques informed the young advocate of the most minute details about his relations to the Countess Claudieuse. He told him at what hour she used to come to the house, what roads she took, and how she was most commonly dressed. The keys of the house were at Boiscoran, in a drawer which Jacques described. He had only to ask Anthony for them. Then he mentioned how they might find out what had become of that Englishman whose name he had borrowed. Sir Francis Burnett had a brother in London. Jacques did not know his precise address; but he knew he had important business-relations with India, and had, once upon a time, been cashier in the great house of Gilmour and Benson.

As to the English servant-girl who had for three years attended to his house in Vine Street, Jacques had taken her blindly, upon the recommendation of an agency in the suburbs; and he had had nothing to do with her, except to pay her her wages, and, occasionally, some little gratuity besides. All he could say, and even that he had learned by mere chance, was, that the girl's name was Suky Wood; that she was a native of Folkstone, where her parents kept a sailor's tavern; and that, before coming to France, she had been a chambermaid at the Adelphi in Liverpool.