He drew them into the sitting-room.  Poor M. Folgat was sorely embarrassed what to do with himself.  No one seemed to be aware of his existence.  He followed them, however.  He entered the room, and standing by the door, sharing the general excitement, he was watching by turns, Dionysia, M. de Chandore, and the two spinsters.

Dionysia was then twenty years old.  It could not be said that she was uncommonly beautiful; but no one could ever forget her again who had once seen her.  Small in form, she was grace personified; and all her movements betrayed a rare and exquisite perfection.  Her black hair fell in marvellous masses over her head, and contrasted strangely with her blue eyes and her fair complexion.  Her skin was of dazzling whiteness.  Every thing in her features spoke of excessive timidity.  And yet, from certain movements of her lips and her eyebrows, one might have suspected no lack of energy.

Grandpapa Chandore looked unusually tall by her side.  His massive frame was imposing.  He did not show his seventy-two years, but was as straight as ever, and seemed to be able to defy all the storms of life.  What struck strangers most, perhaps, was his dark-red complexion, which gave him the appearance of an Indian chieftain, while his white beard and hair brought the crimson color still more prominently out.  In spite of his herculean frame and his strange complexion, his face bore the expression of almost child-like goodness.  But the first glance at his eyes proved that the gentle smile on his lips was not to be taken alone.  There were flashes in his gray eyes which made people aware that a man who should dare, for instance, to offend Dionysia, would have to pay for it pretty dearly.

As to the two aunts, they were as tall and thin as a couple of willow-rods, pale, discreet, ultra-aristocratic in their reserve and their coldness; but they bore in their faces an expression of happy peace and sentimental tenderness, such as is often seen in old maids whose temper has not been soured by celibacy.  They dressed absolutely alike, as they had done now for forty years, preferring neutral colors and modest fashions, such as suited their simple taste.

They were crying bitterly at that moment; and M. Folgat felt instinctively that there was no sacrifice of which they were not capable for their beloved niece’s sake.

“Poor Dionysia!” they whispered.

The girl heard them, however; and, drawing herself up, she said,—­

“But we are behaving shamefully.  What would Jacques say, if he could see us from his prison!  Why should we be so sad?  Is he not innocent?”

Her eyes shone with unusual brilliancy:  her voice had a ring which moved Manuel Folgat deeply.

“I can at least, in justice to myself,” she went on saying, “assure you that I have never doubted him for a moment.  And how should I ever have dared to doubt?  The very night on which the fire broke out, Jacques wrote me a letter of four pages, which he sent me by one of his tenants, and which reached me at nine o’clock.  I showed it to grandpapa.  He read it, and then he said I was a thousand times right, because a man who had been meditating such a crime could never have written that letter.”