“He will tell us all, sir, without reserve, without fear, and without danger.”

“Oh!”

“I have taken my precautions.  You will see.”

“Then we have only to wait.”

Alas, yes!  They had to wait, and that was what distressed Dionysia.  She hardly slept that night.  The next day was one unbroken torment.  At each ringing of the bell, she trembled, and ran to see.

At last, towards five o’clock, when nothing had come, she said,—­

“It is not to be to-day, provided, O God! that poor Mechinet has not been caught.”

And, perhaps in order to escape for a time the anguish of her fears, she agreed to accompany Jacques’s mother, who wanted to pay some visits.

Ah, if she had but known!  She had not left the house ten minutes, when one of those street-boys, who abound at all hours of the day on the great Square, appeared, bringing a letter to her address.  They took it to M. de Chandore, who, while waiting for dinner, was walking in the garden with M. Folgat.

“A letter for Dionysia!” exclaimed the old gentleman, as soon as the servant had disappeared.  “Here is the answer we have been waiting for!”

He boldly tore it open.  Alas!  It was useless.  The note within the envelope ran thus,—­

“31:9, 17, 19, 23, 25, 28, 32, 101, 102, 129, 137, 504, 515—­37:2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 24, 27, 52, 54, 118, 119, 120, 200, 201—­41:7, 9, 17, 21, 22, 44, 45, 46”—­

And so on, for two pages.

“Look at this, and try to make it out,” said M. de Chandore, handing the letter to M. Folgat.

The young man actually tried it; but, after five minutes’ useless efforts, he said,—­

“I understand now why Miss Chandore promised us that we should know the truth.  M. de Boiscoran and she have formerly corresponded with each other in cipher.”

Grandpapa Chandore raised his hands to heaven.

“Just think of these little girls!  Here we are utterly helpless without her, as she alone can translate those hieroglyphics for you.”

If Dionysia had hoped, by accompanying the marchioness on her visits, to escape from the sad presentiments that oppressed her, she was cruelly disappointed.  They went to M. Seneschal’s house first; but the mayor’s wife was by no means calculated to give courage to others in an hour of peril.  She could do nothing but embrace alternately Jacques’s mother and Dionysia, and, amid a thousand sobs, tell them over and over again, that she looked upon one as the most unfortunate of mothers, and upon the other as the most unfortunate of betrothed maidens.

“Does the woman think Jacques is guilty?” thought Dionysia, and felt almost angry.

And that was not all.  As they returned home, and passed the house which had been provisionally taken for Count Claudieuse and his family, they heard a little boy calling out,—­

“O mamma, come quick!  Here are the murderer’s mother and his sweetheart.”