“And I agreed,” said Blangin in a paternal tone of voice, “to bring her in secretly.  It is a great sin I commit; and if it ever should become known—­But one may be ever so much a jailer, one has a heart, after all.  I tell you so merely because the young lady might not think of it.  If the secret is not kept carefully, I should lose my place, and I am a poor man, with wife and children.”

“You are the best of men!” exclaimed M. de Boiscoran, far from suspecting the price that had been paid for Blangin’s sympathy, “and, on the day on which I regain my liberty, I will prove to you that we whom you have obliged are not ungrateful.”

“Quite at your service,” replied the jailer modestly.

Gradually, however, Dionysia had recovered her self-possession.  She said gently to Blangin,—­

“Leave us now, my good friend.”

As soon as he had disappeared, and without allowing M. de Boiscoran to say a word, she said, speaking very low,—­

“Jacques, grandpapa has told me, that by coming thus to you at night, alone, and in secret, I run the risk of losing your affection, and of diminishing your respect.”

“Ah, you did not think so!”

“Grandpapa has more experience than I have, Jacques.  Still I did not hesitate.  Here I am; and I should have run much greater risks; for your honor is at stake, and your honor is my honor, as your life is my life.  Your future is at stake, our future, our happiness, all our hopes here below.”

Inexpressible joy had illumined the prisoner’s face.

“O God!” he cried, “one such moment pays for years of torture.”

But Dionysia had sworn to herself, as she came, that nothing should turn her aside from her purpose.  So she went on,—­

“By the sacred memory of my mother, I assure you, Jacques, that I have never for a moment doubted your innocence.”

The unhappy man looked distressed.

“You,” he said; “but the others?  But M. de Chandore?”

“Do you think I would be here, if he thought you were guilty?  My aunts and your mother are as sure of it as I am.”

“And my father?  You said nothing about him in your letter.”

“Your father remained in Paris in case some influence in high quarters should have to be appealed to.”

Jacque shook his head, and said,—­

“I am in prison at Sauveterre, accused of a fearful crime, and my father remains in Paris!  It must be true that he never really loved me.  And yet I have always been a good son to him down to this terrible catastrophe.  He has never had to complain of me.  No, my father does not love me.”

Dionysia could not allow him to go off in this way.