“I feel like giving it up,” thought the young lawyer.

In the meantime he had reached the prison.  He felt the necessity of concealing his anxiety.  While Blangin went before him through the long passages, rattling his keys, he endeavored to give to his features an expression of hopeful confidence.

“At last you come!” cried Jacques.

He had evidently suffered terribly since the day before.  A feverish restlessness had disordered his features, and reddened his eyes.  He was shaking with nervous tremor.  Still he waited till the jailer had shut the door; and then he asked hoarsely,—­

“What did she say?”

M. Folgat gave him a minute account of his mission, quoting the words of the countess almost literally.

“That is just like her!” exclaimed the prisoner.  “I think I can hear her!  What a woman!  To defy me in this way!”

And in his anger he wrung his hands till they nearly bled.

“You see,” said the young advocate, “there is no use in trying to get outside of our circle of defence.  Any new effort would be useless.”

“No!” replied Jacques.  “No, I shall not stop there!”

And after a few moments’ reflection,—­if he can be said to have been able to reflect,—­he said,—­

“I hope you will pardon me, my dear sir, for having exposed you to such insults.  I ought to have foreseen it, or, rather, I did foresee it.  I knew that was not the way to begin the battle.  But I was a coward, I was afraid, I drew back, fool that I was!  As if I had not known that we shall at any rate have to come to the last extremity!  Well, I am ready now, and I shall do it!”

“What do you mean to do?”

“I shall go and see the Countess Claudieuse.  I shall tell her”—­

“Oh!”

“You do not think she will deny it to my face?  When I once have her under my eye, I shall make her confess the crime of which I am accused.”

M. Folgat had promised Dr. Seignebos not to mention what Martha and her governess had said; but he felt no longer bound to conceal it.

“And if the countess should not be guilty?” he asked.

“Who, then, could be guilty?”

“If she had an accomplice?”

“Well, she will tell me who it is.  I will insist upon it, I will make her tell.  I will not be disgraced.  I am innocent, I will not go to the galleys!”

To try and make Jacques listen to reason would have been madness just now.

“Have a care,” said the young lawyer.  “Our defence is difficult enough already; do not make it still more so.”

“I shall be careful.”

“A scene might ruin us irrevocably.”

“Be not afraid!”

M. Folgat said nothing more.  He thought he could guess by what means Jacques would try to get out of prison.  But he did not ask him about the details, because his position as his counsel made it his duty not to know, or, at least, to seem not to know, certain things.