She was interrupted by a servant, who entered to announce that dinner was on the table.

They all went into the dining-room; but the last event made it well-nigh impossible for them to eat.  Dionysia alone, deriving from feverish excitement an amazing energy, aided M. Folgat in keeping up the conversation.  From her the young advocate learned that Count Claudieuse was decidedly worse, and that he would have received, in the day, the last sacrament, but for the decided opposition of Dr. Seignebos, who had declared that the slightest excitement might kill his patient.

“And if he dies,” said M. de Chandore, “that is the finishing stroke.  Public opinion, already incensed against Jacques, will become implacable.”

However, the meal came to an end; and M. Folgat went up to Dionysia, saying,—­

“I must beg of you, madam, to trust me with the key to the little garden-gate.”

She looked at him quite astonished.

“I have to see a detective secretly, who has promised me his assistance.”

“Is he here?”

“He came this morning.”

When Dionysia had handed him the key, M. Folgat hastened to reach the end of the garden; and, at the third stroke of nine o’clock, the minstrel of the New-Market Square, Goudar, pushed the little gate, and, his violin under his arm, slipped into the garden.

“A day lost!” he exclaimed, without thinking of saluting the young lawyer,—­“a whole day; for I could do nothing till I had seen you.”

He seemed to be so angry, that M. Folgat tried to soothe him.

“Let me first of all compliment you on your disguise,” he said.  But Goudar did not seem to be open to praise.

“What would a detective be worth if he could not disguise himself!  A great merit, forsooth!  And I tell you, I hate it!  But I could not think of coming to Sauveterre in my own person, a detective.  Ugh!  Everybody would have run away; and what a pack of lies they would have told me!  So I had to assume that hideous masquerade.  To think that I once took six months’ lessons from a music-teacher merely to fit myself for that character!  A wandering musician, you see, can go anywhere, and nobody is surprised; he goes about the streets, or he travels along the high-road; he enters into yards, and slips into houses; he asks alms:  and in so doing, he accosts everybody, speaks to them, follows them.  And as to my precious dialect, you must know I have been down here once for half a year, hunting up counterfeiters; and, if you don’t catch a provincial accent in six months, you don’t deserve belonging to the police.  And I do belong to it, to the great distress of my wife, and to my own disgust.”

“If your ambition is really what you say, my dear, Goudar,” said M. Folgat, interrupting him, “you may be able to leave your profession very soon—­if you succeed in saving M. de Boiscoran.”

“He would give me his house in Vine Street?”