“That is what we shall know very soon; for I am determined I will not allow myself a moment’s rest till I have found out the truth of the whole matter.  How fortunate it was that this fatal error in form should have made the sentence null and void!”

He was so much excited, that he forgot his never-failing quotations.  Turning to the clerk, he said,—­

“But we must not lose a minute.  Put your legs into active motion, my dear Mechinet, and run and ask M. Folgat to come here.  I will wait for him here.”

III.

When Dionysia, after leaving the Countess Claudieuse, came back to Jacques’s parents and his friends, she said, radiant with hope,—­

“Now victory is on our side!”

Her grandfather and the Marquis de Boiscoran urged her to explain; but she refused to say any thing, and only later, towards evening, she confessed to M. Folgat what she had done with the countess, and that it was more than probable that the count would, before he died, retract his evidence.

“That alone would save Jacques,” said the young advocate.

But his hope only encouraged him to make still greater efforts; and, all overcome as he was by his labors and emotions of the trial, he spent the night in Grandpapa Chandore’s study, preparing with M. Magloire the application they proposed to make for a new trial.

They finished only when it was already broad daylight:  so he did not care to go to bed, and installed himself in a large easy-chair for the purpose of getting a few hours’ rest.

He had, however, not slept more than an hour, when old Anthony roused him to tell him that there was an unknown man down stairs who asked to see him instantly.

M. Folgat rubbed his eyes, and at once went down:  in the passage he found himself face to face with a man of some fifty years, of rather suspicious appearance, who wore his mustache and his chin-beard, and was dressed in a tight coat and large trousers, such as old soldiers affect.

“You are M. Folgat?” asked this man.

“Yes.”

“Well, I—­I am the agent whom friend Goudar sent to England.”

The young lawyer started, and asked,—­

“Since when are you here?”

“Since this morning, by express.  Twenty-four hours too late, I know; for I bought a newspaper at the station.  M. de Boiscoran has been found guilty.  And yet I swear I did not lose a minute; and I have well earned the gratuity which I was promised in case of success.”

“You have been successful, have you?”

“Of course.  Did I not tell you in my letter from Jersey that I was sure of success?”

“You have found Suky?”

“Twenty-four hours after I wrote to you,—­in a public-house at Bonly Bay.  She would not come, the wretch!”

“You have brought her, however?”

“Of course.  She is at the Hotel de France, where I have left her till I could come and see you.”