M. de Boiscoran was right when he said that his wife’s pride was unmanageable. And still, as cruelly wounded as woman well could be, she now suppressed her pride, and, thinking only of her son, remained quite humble. Drawing from her bosom the letter which Jacques had sent to her the day before she left Sauveterre, she handed it to her husband, saying,-- “Will you read what our son says?” The marquis’s hand trembled as he took the letter; and, when he had torn it open, he read,-- “Do you forsake me too, father, when everybody forsakes me? And yet I have never needed your love as much as now. The peril is imminent. Every thing is against me. Never has such a combination of fatal circumstances been seen before. I may not be able to prove my innocence; but you,--you surely cannot think your son guilty of such an absurd and heinous crime! Oh, no! surely not. My mind is made up. I shall fight to the bitter end. To my last breath I shall defend, not my life, but my honor. Ah, if you but knew! But there are things which cannot be written, and which only a father can be told. I beseech you come to me, let me see you, let me hold your hand in mine. Do not refuse this last and greatest comfort to your unhappy son.” The marquis had started up. “Oh, yes, very unhappy indeed!” he cried. And, bowing to his wife, he said,-- “I interrupted you. Now, pray tell me all.” Maternal love conquered womanly resentment. Without a shadow of hesitation, and as if nothing had taken place, the marchioness gave her husband the whole of Jacques’s statement as he had made it to M. Magloire. The marquis seemed to be amazed. “That is unheard of!” he said. And, when his wife had finished, he added,-- “That was the reason why Jacques was so very angry when you spoke of inviting the Countess Claudieuse, and why he told you, that, if he saw her enter at one door, he would walk out of the other. We did not understand his aversion.” “Alas! it was not aversion. Jacques only obeyed at that time the cunning lessons given him by the countess.” In less than one minute the most contradictory resolutions seemed to flit across the marquis’s face. He hesitated, and at last he said,-- “Whatever can be done to make up for my inaction, I will do. I will go to Sauveterre. Jacques must be saved. M. de Margeril is all-powerful. Go to him. I permit it. I beg you will do it.” The eyes of the marchioness filled with tears, hot tears, the first she had shed since the beginning of this scene. “Do you not see,” she asked, “that what you wish me to do is now impossible? Every thing, yes, every thing in the world but that. But Jacques and I--we are innocent. God will have pity on us. M. Folgat will save us.” XIX.