“It is precisely because I am his friend, madam, that I am bound to tell you the truth. Yes, I know and I appreciate all the noble qualities which distinguish M. de Boiscoran. I have loved him, and I love him still. But this is a matter which we have to look at with the mind, and not with the heart. Jacques is a man; and he will be judged by men. There is clear, public, and absolute evidence of his guilt on hand. What evidence has he to offer of his innocence? Moral evidence only.” “O God!” murmured Dionysia. “I think, therefore, with my honorable brother”-- And M. Magloire bowed to M. Folgat. “I think, that, if M. de Boiscoran is innocent, he has adopted an unfortunate system. Ah! if luckily there should be an _alibi_. He ought to make haste, great haste, to establish it. He ought not to allow matters to go on till he is sent up into court. Once there, an accused is three-fourths condemned already.” For once it looked as if the crimson in M. de Chandore’s cheeks was growing pale. “And yet,” he exclaimed, “Jacques will not change his system: any one who knows his mulish obstinacy might be quite sure of that.” “And unfortunately he has made up his mind,” said Dionysia, “as M. Magloire, who knows him so well, will see from this letter of his.” Until now nothing had been said to let the Sauveterre lawyer suspect that communications had been opened with the prisoner. Now that the letter had been alluded to, it became necessary to take him into confidence. At first he was astonished, then he looked displeased; and, when he had been told every thing, he said,-- “This is great imprudence! This is too daring!” Then looking at M. Folgat, he added,-- “Our profession has certain rules which cannot be broken without causing trouble. To bribe a clerk, to profit by his weakness and his sympathy”-- The Paris lawyer had blushed imperceptibly. He said,-- “I should never have advised such imprudence; but, when it was once committed, I did not feel bound to insist upon its being abandoned: and even if I should be blamed for it, or more, I mean to profit by it.” M. Magloire did not reply; but, after having read Jacques’s letter, he said,-- “I am at M. de Boiscoran’s disposal; and I shall go to him as soon as he is no longer in close confinement. I think, as Miss Dionysia does, that he will insist upon saying nothing. However, as we have the means of reaching him by letter,--well, here I am myself ready to profit by the imprudence that has been committed!--beseech him, in the name of his own interest, in the name of all that is dear to him, to speak, to explain, to prove his innocence.” Thereupon M. Magloire bowed, and withdrew suddenly, leaving his audience in consternation, so very evident was it, that he left so suddenly in order to conceal the painful impression which Jacques’s letter had produced upon him.