“There was no need of this letter to confirm my opinion.  At the bottom of this affair there is a secret which none of us have found out yet.  But M. de Boiscoran acts very rashly in playing in this way with a criminal prosecution.  Why did he not explain at once?  What was easy yesterday may be less easy to-morrow, and perhaps impossible in a week.”

“Jacques, sir, is a superior man,” cried Dionysia, “and whatever he says is perfectly sure to be the right thing.”

His mother’s entrance prevented the young lawyer from making any reply.  Two hours’ rest had restored to the old lady a part of her energy, and her usual presence of mind; and she now asked that a telegram should be sent to her husband.

“It is the least we can do,” said M. de Chandore in an undertone, “although it will be useless, I dare say.  Boiscoran does not care that much for his son.  Pshaw!  Ah! if it was a rare faience, or a plate that is wanting in his collection, then would it be a very different story.”

Still the despatch was drawn up and sent, at the very moment when a servant came in, and announced that dinner was ready.  The meal was less sad than they had anticipated.  Everybody, to be sure, felt a heaviness at heart as he thought that at the same hour a jailer probably brought Jacques his meal to his cell; nor could Dionysia keep from dropping a tear when she saw M. Folgat sitting in her lover’s place.  But no one, except the young advocate, thought that Jacques was in real danger.

M. Seneschal, however, who came in just as coffee was handed round, evidently shared M. Folgat’s apprehensions.  The good mayor came to hear the news, and to tell his friends how he had spent the day.  The funeral of the firemen had passed off quietly, although amid deep emotion.  No disturbance had taken place, as was feared; and Dr. Seignebos had not spoken at the graveyard.  Both a disturbance and a row would have been badly received, said M. Seneschal; for he was sorry to say, the immense majority of the people of Sauveterre did not doubt M. de Boiscoran’s guilt.  In several groups he had heard people say, “And still you will see they will not condemn him.  A poor devil who should commit such a horrible crime would be hanged sure enough; but the son of the Marquis de Boiscoran—­you will see, he’ll come out of it as white as snow.”

The rolling of a carriage, which stopped at the door, fortunately interrupted him at this point.

“Who can that be?” asked Dionysia, half frightened.

They heard in the passage the noise of steps and voices, something like a scuffle; and almost instantly the tenant’s son Michael pushed open the door of the sitting-room, crying out,—­

“I have gotten him!  Here he is!”

And with these words he pushed in Cocoleu, all struggling, and looking around him, like a wild beast caught in a trap.

“Upon my word, my good fellow,” said M. Seneschal, “you have done better than the gendarmes!”