Jacques misunderstood him: he stepped back, as white as the walls of his cell. “You do not think me guilty?” he exclaimed. An inexpressibly sad expression convulsed his features. “To be sure,” he went on with his terrible convulsive laughter, “the charges must be overwhelming indeed, if they have convinced my best friends. Alas! why did I refuse to speak that first day? My honor!--what a phantom! And still, victimized as I am by an infamous conspiracy, I should still refuse to speak, if my life alone were at stake. But my honor is at stake. Dionysia’s honor, the honor of the Boiscorans. I shall speak. You, M. Magloire, shall know the truth, you shall see my innocence in a word.” And, seizing M. Magloire’s hand, he pressed it almost painfully, as he added in a hoarse voice,-- “One word will explain the whole thing to you: I was the lover of the Countess Claudieuse!” XIII. If he had been less distressed, Jacques de Boiscoran would have seen how wisely he had acted in choosing for his defender the great advocate of Sauveterre. A stranger, M. Folgat, for instance, would have heard him silently, and would have seen in the revelation nothing but the fact without giving it a personal value. In M. Magloire, on the contrary, he saw what the whole country would feel. And M. Magloire, when he heard him declare that the Countess Claudieuse had been his mistress, looked indignant, and exclaimed,-- “That is impossible.” At least Jacques was not surprised. He had been the first to say that they would refuse to believe him when he should speak; and this conviction had largely influenced him in keeping silence so long. “It is impossible, I know,” he said; “and still it is so.” “Give me proofs!” said M. Magloire. “I have no proofs.” The melancholy and sympathizing expression of the great lawyer changed instantly. He sternly glanced at the prisoner, and his eye spoke of amazement and indignation. “There are things,” he said, “which it is rash to affirm when one is not able to support them with proof. Consider”-- “My situation forces me to tell all.” “Why, then, did you wait so long?” “I hoped I should be spared such a fearful extremity.” “By whom?” “By the countess.” M. Magloire’s face became darker and darker. “I am not often accused of partiality,” he said. “Count Claudieuse is, perhaps, the only enemy I have in this country; but he is a bitter, fierce enemy. To keep me out of the chamber, and to prevent my obtaining many votes, he stooped to acts unworthy of a gentleman. I do not like him. But in justice I must say that I look upon the countess as the loftiest, the purest, and noblest type of the woman, the wife, and the mother.” A bitter smile played on Jacques’s lips. “And still I have been her lover,” he said. “When? How? The countess lived at Valpinson: you lived in Paris.” “Yes; but every year the countess came and spent the month of September in Paris; and I came occasionally to Boiscoran.”