has happened.  If she does speak to you, go up to her, you, quite alone, and she will show you into a small room which adjoins her own.  There you will stay till Blangin, perhaps at a late hour, thinks he can safely take you to M. de Boiscoran’s cell.  When the interview is over, you come back into the little room, where a bed will be ready for you, and you spend the night there; for this is the hardest part of it:  you cannot leave the prison till next day.”

This was certainly terrible; still, after a moment’s reflection, Dionysia said,—­

“Never mind!  I accept.  Tell Blangin, M. Mechinet, that it is all right.”

That Dionysia should accept all the conditions of Blangin the jailer was perfectly natural; but to obtain M. de Chandore’s consent was a much more difficult task.  The poor girl understood this so well, that, for the first time in her life, she felt embarrassed in her grandfather’s presence.  She hesitated, she prepared her little speech, and she selected carefully her words.  But in spite of all her skill, in spite of all the art with which she managed to present her strange request, M. de Chandore had no sooner understood her project than he exclaimed,—­

“Never, never, never!”

Perhaps in his whole life the old gentleman had never expressed himself in so positive a manner.  His brow had never looked so dark.  Usually, when his granddaughter had a petition, his lips might say, “No;” but his eyes always said, “Yes.”

“Impossible!” he repeated, and in a tone of voice which seemed to admit of no reply.

Surely, in all these painful events, he had not spared himself, and he had so far done for Dionysia all that she could possibly expect of him.  Her will had been his will.  As she had prompted, he had said, “Yes,” or “No.”  What more could he have said or done?

Without telling him what she was going to do with it, Dionysia had asked him for twenty thousand francs, and he had given them to her, however big the sum might be everywhere, however immense in a small town like Sauveterre.  He was quite ready to give her as much again, or twice as much, without asking any more questions.

But for Dionysia to leave her home one evening at six o’clock, and not to return to it till the next morning—­

“That I cannot permit,” he repeated.

But for Dionysia to spend a night in the Sauveterre jail, in order to have an interview with her betrothed, who was accused of incendiarism and murder; to remain there all night, alone, absolutely at the mercy of the jailer, a hard, coarse, covetous man—­

“That I will never permit,” exclaimed the old gentleman once more.

Dionysia remained calm, and let the storm pass.  When her grandfather became silent, she said,—­

“But if I must?”

M. de Chandore shrugged his shoulders.  She repeated in a louder tone,—­

“If I must, in order to decide Jacques to abandon this system that will ruin him, to induce him to speak before the investigation is completed?”