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

a kind of stupor, during which M. Galpin had been unable to draw a word from him. He had taken nothing all day long but a little broth and a cup of coffee. When the magistrate left him, he had sat down, leaning his head on his elbows, facing the window; and there he had remained, never moving, and so deeply absorbed in his reveries, that he had taken no notice when they brought him light. He was still in this state, when, a little after ten o’clock, he heard the grating of the bolts of his cell. He had become so well acquainted with the prison that he knew all its regulations. He knew at what hours his meals were brought, at what time Trumence came to clean up his room, and when he might expect the magistrate. After night, he knew he was his own master till next morning. So late a visit therefore, must needs bring him some unexpected news, his liberty, perhaps,—that visitor for whom all prisoners look so anxiously.

He started up. As soon as he distinguished in the darkness the jailer’s rugged face, he asked eagerly,—

“Who wants me?”

Blangin bowed. He was a polite jailer. Then he replied,—

“Sir, I bring you a visitor.”

And, moving aside, he made way for Dionysia, or, rather, he pushed her into the room; for she seemed to have lost all power to move.

“A visitor?” repeated M. de Boiscoran.

But the jailer had raised his lantern, and the poor man could recognize his betrothed.

“You,” he cried, “you here!”

And he drew back, afraid of being deceived by a dream, or one of those fearful hallucinations which announce the coming of insanity, and take hold of the brains of sick people in times of over-excitement.

“Dionysia!” he barely whispered, “Dionysia!”

If not her own life (for she cared nothing for that), but Jacques’s life, had at that moment depended on a single word, Dionysia could not have uttered it. Her throat was parched, and her lips refused to move. The jailer took it upon himself to answer,—

“Yes,” he said, “Miss Chandore.”

“At this hour, in my prison!”

“She had something important to communicate to you. She came to me”—

“O Dionysia!” stammered Jacques, “what a precious friend”—

“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.

“Listen to me, Jacques,” she said: “let me tell you why I ran the risk of taking this serious step, that may cost me so dear. I come to you in the name of all your friends, in the name of M. Folgat, the great advocate whom your mother has brought down from Paris and in the name of M. Magloire, in whom you put so much confidence. They all agree you have adopted an abominable system. By refusing obstinately to speak, you rush voluntarily into the gravest danger. Listen well to what I tell you. If you wait till the examination is over, you are lost. If you are once handed over to the court, it is too late for you to speak. You will only, innocent as you are, make one more on the list of judicial murders.”

Jacques de Boiscoran had listened to Dionysia in silence, his head bowed to the ground, as if to conceal its pallor from her. As soon as she stopped, all out of breath, he murmured,—

“Alas! Every thing you tell me I have told myself more than once.”

“And you did not speak?”

“I did not.”

“Ah, Jacques, you are not aware of the danger you run! You do not know”—

“I know,” he said, interrupting her in a harsh, hoarse voice,—“I know that the scaffold, or the galleys, are at the end.”

Dionysia was petrified with horror.

Poor girl! She had imagined that she would only have to show herself to triumph