her confess the crime of which I am accused."

M. Folgat had promised Dr. Seignebos not to mention what Martha and her
governess had said; but he felt no longer bound to conceal it.

"And if the countess should not be guilty?" he asked.

"Who, then, could be guilty?"

"If she had an accomplice?"

"Well, she will tell me who it is. I will insist upon it, I will make
her tell. I will not be disgraced. I am innocent, I will not go to the
galleys!"

To try and make Jacques listen to reason would have been madness just
now.

"Have a care," said the young lawyer. "Our defence is difficult enough
already; do not make it still more so."

"I shall be careful."

"A scene might ruin us irrevocably."

"Be not afraid!"

M. Folgat said nothing more. He thought he could guess by what means
Jacques would try to get out of prison. But he did not ask him about
the details, because his position as his counsel made it his duty not to
know, or, at least, to seem not to know, certain things.

"Now, my dear sir," said the prisoner, "you will render me a service,
will you not?"

"What is it?"

"I want to know as accurately as possible how the house in which the
countess lives is arranged."

Without saying a word, M. Folgat took out a sheet of paper, and drew
on it a plan of the house, as far as he knew,--of the garden, the
entrance-hall, and the sitting-room.

"And the count's room," asked Jacques, "where is that?"

"In the upper story."

"You are sure he cannot get up?"

"Dr. Seignebos told me so."

The prisoner seemed to be delighted.

"Then all is right," he said, "and I have only to ask you, my dear
counsel, to tell Miss Dionysia that I must see her to-day, as soon as
possible. I wish her to come accompanied by one of her aunts only. And,
I beseech you, make haste."

M. Folgat did hasten; so that, twenty minutes later, he was at the young
lady's house. She was in her chamber. He sent word to her that he wished
to see her; and, as soon as she heard that Jacques wanted her, she said
simply,--

"I am ready to go."

And, calling one of the Misses Lavarande, she told her,--

"Come, Aunt Elizabeth, be quick. Take your hat and your shawl. I am
going out, and you are going with me."

The prisoner counted so fully upon the promptness of his betrothed, that
he had already gone down into the parlor when she arrived at the prison,
quite out of breath from having walked so fast. He took her hands, and,
pressing them