ng them despairingly and wildly.

"If only your father may die and never know this, young man! To be a
forger is enough; a parricide you must not be. Fly, you say? No. They
would condemn you for contempt of court! Oh, wretched boy! Why did you
not forge _my_ signature? _I_ would have paid; I should not have taken
the bill to the public prosecutor.--Now I can do nothing. You have
brought me to a stand in the lowest pit in hell!--Du Croisier! What will
come of it? What is to be done?--If you had killed a man, there might be
some help for it. But forgery--_forgery_! And time--the time is flying,"
he went on, shaking his fist towards the old clock. "You will want a
sham passport now. One crime leads to another. First," he added, after a
pause, "first of all we must save the house of d'Esgrignon."

"But the money is still in Mme. de Maufrigneuse's keeping," exclaimed
Victurnien.

"Ah!" exclaimed Chesnel. "Well, there is some hope left--a faint hope.
Could we soften du Croisier, I wonder, or buy him over? He shall have
all the lands if he likes. I will go to him; I will wake him and offer
him all we have.--Besides, it was not you who forged that bill; it was
I. I will go to jail; I am too old for the hulks, they can only put me
in prison."

"But the body of the bill is in my handwriting," objected Victurnien,
without a sign of surprise at this reckless devotion.

"Idiot!... that is, pardon, M. le Comte. Josephin should have been made
to write it," the old notary cried wrathfully. "He is a good creature;
he would have taken it all on his shoulders. But there is an end of
it; the world is falling to pieces," the old man continued, sinking
exhausted into a chair. "Du Croisier is a tiger; we must be careful not
to rouse him. What time is it? Where is the draft? If it is at Paris,
it might be bought back from the Kellers; they might accommodate us.
Ah! but there are dangers on all sides; a single false step means ruin.
Money is wanted in any case. But there! nobody knows you are here, you
must live buried away in the cellar if needs must. I will go at once to
Paris as fast as I can; I can hear the mail coach from Brest."

In a moment the old man recovered the faculties of his youth--his
agility and vigor. He packed up clothes for the journey, took money,
brought a six-pound loaf to the little room beyond the office, and
turned the key on his child by adoption.

"Not a sound in here," he said, "no light at night; and stop he