The great calmness of the distinguished lawyer of Sauveterre terrified his listeners more and more, except M. Folgat.  When they heard him use all those technical terms, they felt chilled through and through like the friends of a wounded man who hear the grating noise of the surgeon’s knife.

“My son’s situation appears to you very serious, sir?” asked the marchioness in a feeble voice.

“I said it was dangerous, madam.”

“You think, as M. Folgat does, that every day adds to the danger to which he is exposed?”

“I am but too sure of that.  And if M. de Boiscoran is really innocent”—­

“Ah, M. Magloire!” broke in Dionysia, “how can you, who are a friend of Jacques’s, say so?”

M. Magloire looked at the young girl with an air of deep and sincere pity, and then said,—­

“It is precisely because I am his friend, madam, that I am bound to tell you the truth.  Yes, I know and I appreciate all the noble qualities which distinguish M. de Boiscoran.  I have loved him, and I love him still.  But this is a matter which we have to look at with the mind, and not with the heart.  Jacques is a man; and he will be judged by men.  There is clear, public, and absolute evidence of his guilt on hand.  What evidence has he to offer of his innocence?  Moral evidence only.”

“O God!” murmured Dionysia.

“I think, therefore, with my honorable brother”—­

And M. Magloire bowed to M. Folgat.

“I think, that, if M. de Boiscoran is innocent, he has adopted an unfortunate system.  Ah! if luckily there should be an alibi.  He ought to make haste, great haste, to establish it.  He ought not to allow matters to go on till he is sent up into court.  Once there, an accused is three-fourths condemned already.”

For once it looked as if the crimson in M. de Chandore’s cheeks was growing pale.

“And yet,” he exclaimed, “Jacques will not change his system:  any one who knows his mulish obstinacy might be quite sure of that.”

“And unfortunately he has made up his mind,” said Dionysia, “as M. Magloire, who knows him so well, will see from this letter of his.”

Until now nothing had been said to let the Sauveterre lawyer suspect that communications had been opened with the prisoner.  Now that the letter had been alluded to, it became necessary to take him into confidence.  At first he was astonished, then he looked displeased; and, when he had been told every thing, he said,—­

“This is great imprudence!  This is too daring!”

Then looking at M. Folgat, he added,—­

“Our profession has certain rules which cannot be broken without causing trouble.  To bribe a clerk, to profit by his weakness and his sympathy”—­

The Paris lawyer had blushed imperceptibly.  He said,—­

“I should never have advised such imprudence; but, when it was once committed, I did not feel bound to insist upon its being abandoned:  and even if I should be blamed for it, or more, I mean to profit by it.”