"On your word of honor?"
"On my word!"
"I think that I shall get it at last," muttered the clerk as he withdrew. "I will go home and tell my wife and children the good news."
He left the cell on the heels of the lieutenant criminal, who was grumbling good-humoredly at having to wait so long.
XVII
WHEREIN IT IS PROVED THAT TRUE FRIENDSHIP IS
CAPABLE OF CARRYING DEVOTION TO THE MARRYING POINT
Aubry, once more alone, was soon more deeply absorbed in thought than before; and the reader will agree that there was ample food for thought in his conversation with the lieutenant criminal. We hasten to say, however, that one who could have read his thoughts would have found that the situation of Ascanio and Colombe, depending as it did upon the letter in his possession, occupied the first place, and that before thinking of himself, a thing which he proposed to do in good time, he deliberated as to what was to be done for them.
He had been meditating thus for half an hour more or less, when the door of his cell opened once more, and the turnkey appeared on the threshold.
"Are you the man who sent for a priest?" he growled.
"To be sure I am," said Jacques.