eserve and her timidity
for your sake, and came and spent a whole night in this prison? She was
risking nothing less than her maidenly honor; for she might have been
discovered or betrayed. She knew that very well, nevertheless she did
not hesitate."

"Ah! you are cruel, sir," broke in Jacques.

And pressing the lawyer's arm hard, he went on,--

"And do you not understand that her memory kills me, and that my misery
is all the greater as I know but too well what bliss I am losing? Do you
not see that I love Dionysia as woman never was loved before? Ah, if my
life alone was at stake! I, at least, I have to make amends for a great
wrong; but she--Great God, why did I ever come across her path?"

He remained for a moment buried in thought; then he added,--

"And yet she, also, did not come yesterday. Why? Oh! no doubt they have
told her all. They have told her how I came to be at Valpinson the night
of the crime."

"You are mistaken, Jacques," said M. Magloire. "Miss Chandore knows
nothing."

"Is it possible?"

"M. Magloire did not speak in her presence," added M. Folgat; "and we
have bound over M. de Chandore to secrecy. I insisted upon it that you
alone had the right to tell the truth to Miss Dionysia."

"Then how does she explain it to herself that I am not set free?"

"She cannot explain it."

"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 Pr