and said,--

"Ah! You come to see M. de Boiscoran, gentlemen? I will show you in:
just give me time to go for my keys."

M. Magloire held him back.

"First of all," he said, "how is M. de Boiscoran?"

"Only so-so," replied the jailer.

"What is the matter?"

"Why, what is the matter with all prisoners when they see that things
are likely to turn out badly for them?"

The two lawyers looked at each other sadly.

It was clear that Blangin thought Jacques guilty, and that was a bad
omen. The persons who stand guard over prisoners have generally a very
keen scent; and not unfrequently lawyers consult them, very much as
an author consults the actors of the theatre on which his piece is to
appear.

"Has he told you any thing?" asked M. Folgat.

"Me personally, nothing," replied the jailer.

And shaking his head, he added,--

"But you know we have our experience. When a prisoner has been with
his counsel, I almost always go up to see him, and to offer him
something,--a little trifle to set him up again. So yesterday, after M.
Magloire had been here, I climbed up"--

"And you found M. de Boiscoran sick?"

"I found him in a pitiful condition, gentlemen. He lay on his stomach on
his bed, his head in the pillow, and stiff as a corpse. I was some time
in his cell before he heard me. I shook my keys, I stamped, I coughed.
No use. I became frightened. I went up to him, and took him by the
shoulder. 'Eh, sir!' Great God! he leaped up as if shot and, sitting
up, he said, 'What to you want?' Of course, I tried to console him, to
explain to him that he ought to speak out; that it is rather unpleasant
to appear in court, but that people don't die of it; that they even come
out of it as white as snow, if they have a good advocate. I might just
as well have been singing, 'O sensible woman.' The more I said, the
fiercer he looked; and at last he cried, without letting me finish, 'Get
out from here! Leave me!'"

He paused a moment to take a whiff at his pipe; but it had gone out: he
put it in his pocket, and went on,--

"I might have told him that I had a right to come into the cells
whenever I liked, and to stay there as long as it pleases me. But
prisoners are like children: you must not worry them. But I opened the
wicket, and I remained there, watching him. Ah, gentlemen, I have been
here twenty years, and I have seen many desperate men; but I never saw
any despair like this young man's. He had jumped up as soon as I