Within an Inch of His Life by Emile Gaboriau (good summer reads .TXT) 📖

“Seventeen thousand francs.”

“These people are robbing you outrageously.”

“Ah, what does the money matter? I wish we were both of us ruined, if you were but free.”

But it had not taken the wife long to persuade the husband. Blangin’s heavy steps were heard in the passage; and almost immediately, he entered, cap in hand, looking obsequious and restless.

“My wife has told me every thing,” he said, “and I consent. Only we must understand each other. This is no trifle you are asking for.”

Jacques interrupted him, and said,—

“Let us not exaggerate the matter. I do not mean to escape: I only want to leave for a time. I shall come back, I give you my word of honor.”

“Upon my life, that is not what troubles me. If the question was only to let you run off altogether, I should open the doors wide, and say, ‘Good-by!’ A prisoner who runs away—that happens every day; but a prisoner who leaves for a few hours, and comes back again—Suppose anybody were to see you in town? Or if any one came and wanted to see you while you are gone? Or if they saw you come back again? What should I say? I am quite ready to be turned off for negligence. I have been paid for that. But to be tried as an accomplice, and to be put into jail myself. Stop! That is not what I mean to do.”

This was evidently but a preface.

“Oh! why lose so many words?” asked Dionysia. “Explain yourself clearly.”

“Well, M. de Boiscoran cannot leave by the gate. At tattoo, at eight o’clock, the soldiers on guard at this season of the year go inside the prison, and until reveille in the morning, or, in others words, till five o’clock, I can neither open nor shut the gates without calling the sergeant in command of the post.”

“Did he want to extort more money? Did he make the difficulties out greater than they really were?”

“After all,” said Jacques, “if you consent, there must be a way.”

The jailer could dissemble no longer: he came out with it bluntly.

“If the thing is to be done, you must get out as if you were escaping in good earnest. The wall between the two towers is, to my knowledge, at one place not over two feet thick; and on the other side, where there are nothing but bare grounds and the old ramparts, they never put a sentinel. I will get you a crowbar and a pickaxe, and you make a hole in the wall.”

Jacques shrugged his shoulders.

“And the next day,” he said, “when I am back, how will you explain that hole?”

Blangin smiled.

“Be sure,” he replied, “I won’t say the rats did it. I have thought of that too. At the same time with you, another prisoner will run off, who will not come back.”

“What prisoner?”

“Trumence, to be sure. He will be delighted to get away, and he will help you in making the hole in the wall. You must make your bargain with him, but, of course, without letting him know that I know any thing. In this way, happen what may, I shall not be in danger.”

The plan was really a good one; only Blangin ought not to have claimed the honor of inventing it: the idea came from his wife.

“Well,” replied Jacques, “that is settled. Get me the pickaxe and the crowbar, show me the place where we must make the hole, and I will take charge of Trumence. To-morrow you shall have the money.”

He was on the point of following the jailer, when Dionysia held him back; and, lifting up her beautiful eyes to him, she said in a tremor,—

“You see, Jacques, I have not hesitated to dare every thing in order to procure you a few house of liberty. May I not know what you are going to do in that time?”

And, as he made no reply, she repeated,—

“Where are you going?”

A rush of blood colored the face of the unfortunate man; and he said in an embarrassed voice,—

“I beseech you, Dionysia, do not insist upon my telling you. Permit me to keep this secret, the only one I have ever kept from you.”

Two tears trembled for a moment in the long lashes of the young girl, and then silently rolled down her cheeks.

“I understand you,” she stammered. “I understand but too well. Although I know so little of life, I had a presentiment, as soon as I saw that they were hiding something from me. Now I cannot doubt any longer. You will go to see a woman to-morrow”—

“Dionysia,” Jacques said with folded hands,—“Dionysia, I beseech you!”

She did not hear him. Gently shaking her heard, she went on,—

“A woman whom you have loved, or whom you love still, at whose feet you have probably murmured the same words which you whispered at my feet. How could you think of her in the midst of all your anxieties? She cannot love you, I am sure. Why did she not come to you when she found that you were in prison, and falsely accused of an abominable crime?”

Jacques cold bear it no longer.

“Great God!” he cried, “I would a thousand times rather tell you every thing than allow such a suspicion to remain in your heart! Listen, and forgive me.”

But she stopped him, putting her hand on his lips, and saying, all in a tremor,—

“No, I do not wish to know any thing,—nothing at all. I believe in you. Only you must remember that you are every thing to me,—hope, life, happiness. If you should have deceived me, I know but too well—poor me!—that I would not cease loving you; but I should not have long to suffer.”

Overcome with grief and affection, Jacques repeated,—

“Dionysia, Dionysia, my darling, let me confess to you who this woman is, and why I must see her.”

“No,” she interrupted him, “no! Do what your conscience bids you do. I believe in you.”

And instead of offering to let him kiss her forehead, as usual, she hurried off with her Aunt Elizabeth, and that so quickly, that, when he rushed after her, he only saw, as it were, a shadow at the end of the long passage.

Never until this moment had Jacques found it in his heart really to hate the Countess Claudieuse with that blind and furious hatred which dreams of nothing but vengeance. Many a time, no doubt, he had cursed her in the