Anthony's voice was
heard from within,--

"Who is there?"

"It is I, Baron Chandore."

The bars were removed instantly, and the old valet showed himself in the
door. He looked pale and undone. The disordered condition of his beard,
his hair, and his dress, showed that he had not been to bed. And this
disorder was full of meaning in a man who ordinarily prided himself upon
appearing always in the dress of an English gentleman.

M. de Chandore was so struck by this, that he asked, first of all,--

"What is the matter with you, my good Anthony?"

Instead of replying, Anthony drew the baron and his companion inside;
and, when he had fastened the door again, he crossed his arms, and
said,--

"The matter is--well, I am afraid."

The old gentleman and the lawyer looked at each other. They evidently
both thought the poor man had lost his mind. Anthony saw it, and said
quickly,--

"No, I am not mad, although, certainly, there are things passing here
which could make one doubtful of one's own senses. If I am afraid, it is
for good reasons."

"You do not doubt your master?" asked M. Folgat.

The servant cast such fierce, threatening glances at the lawyer, that M.
de Chandore hastened to interfere.

"My dear Anthony," he said, "this gentleman is a friend of mine, a
lawyer, who has come down from Paris with the marchioness to defend
Jacques. You need not mistrust him, nay, more than that, you must tell
him all you know, even if"--

The trusty old servant's face brightened up, and he exclaimed,--

"Ah! If the gentleman is a lawyer. Welcome, sir. Now I can say all that
weighs on my heart. No, most assuredly I do not think Master Jacques
guilty. It is impossible he should be so: it is absurd to think of it.
But what I believe, what I am sure of, is this,--there is a plot to
charge him with all the horrors of Valpinson."

"A plot?" broke in M. Folgat, "whose? how? and what for?"

"Ah! that is more than I know. But I am not mistaken; and you would
think so too, if you had been present at the examination, as I was. It
was fearful, gentlemen, it was unbearable, so that even I was stupefied
for a moment, and thought my master was guilty, and advised him to flee.
The like has never been heard of before, I am sure. Every thing went
against him. Every answer he made sounded like a confession. A crime
had been committed at Valpinson; he had been seen going there and coming
back by side paths. A fire had been kindled; his ha