"Just think of these little girls! Here we are utterly helpless without
her, as she alone can translate those hieroglyphics for you."

If Dionysia had hoped, by accompanying the marchioness on her visits,
to escape from the sad presentiments that oppressed her, she was cruelly
disappointed. They went to M. Seneschal's house first; but the mayor's
wife was by no means calculated to give courage to others in an hour of
peril. She could do nothing but embrace alternately Jacques's mother and
Dionysia, and, amid a thousand sobs, tell them over and over again, that
she looked upon one as the most unfortunate of mothers, and upon the
other as the most unfortunate of betrothed maidens.

"Does the woman think Jacques is guilty?" thought Dionysia, and felt
almost angry.

And that was not all. As they returned home, and passed the house which
had been provisionally taken for Count Claudieuse and his family, they
heard a little boy calling out,--

"O mamma, come quick! Here are the murderer's mother and his
sweetheart."

Thus the poor girl came home more downcast than before. Immediately,
however, her maid, who had evidently been on the lookout for her return,
told her that her grandfather and the lawyer from Paris were waiting for
her in the baron's study. She hastened there without stopping to take
off her bonnet; and, as soon as she came in, M. de Chandore handed her
Jacques's letter, saying,--