t Madame de Lucenay
seized his hand, and said, in an accent of the most perfect conviction:

"He is innocent; I will swear it. Listen in silence."

The comte paused. He wished to believe what the duchess said to him, and
she was entirely persuaded of Florestan's untarnished honour. To obtain
fresh sacrifices from this woman, so blindly generous,--sacrifices which
alone could save him from arrest,--and the prosecution of Jacques
Ferrand, the vicomte had affirmed to Madame de Lucenay that, duped by a
scoundrel from whom he had taken a forged bill in exchange, he ran the
risk of being considered as the forger's accomplice, as having himself
put this bill into circulation. Madame de Lucenay knew that the vicomte
was imprudent, extravagant, reckless; but she never for an instant
supposed him capable, not only of a base or an infamous action, but
even of the slightest indiscretion. Twice lending him considerable sums
under very trying circumstances, she had wished to render him a friendly
service, the vicomte expressly accepting these loans under the condition
that he should return them; for there were persons, he said, who owed
him double that amount; and his style of living made it seem probable.

Besides, Madame de Lucenay, yielding to the impulse of her natural
kindness, had only thought of how she could be useful to Florestan,
without ever reflecting as to whether or not he would ever return the
sums thus advanced. He said so, and she did not doubt him; for,
otherwise, would he have accepted such large amounts? When, then, she
thus answered for Florestan's honour, entreating the old comte to listen
to his son's conversation, the duchess thought that it was a question of
the breach of honour of which the vicomte had declared himself the
victim, and that he must stand forth completely exonerated in the eyes
of his father.

"Again I declare," continued Florestan, in a troubled voice, "this
Petit-Jean is a scamp; he assured me that he had no other bills in his
hands but those which I received from him yesterday and three days
previously. I believed this one was still in circulation, and only due
three months hence, in London, at the house of Adams and Company."

"Yes, yes," said the sarcastic voice of Badinot, "I know, my dear
vicomte, that you had managed the affair very cleverly, so that your
forgeries would not be detected until you were a long way off; but you
tried to 'do' those who were more cunning than yourself."