"You will not change it."

"But--"

"You will not change it! Expelled from society in which you have
hitherto lived, you would become very quickly criminal, like the
wretches amongst whom you would be cast, a thief inevitably, and, if
your need were, an assassin. That would be your future life."

"I an assassin?--I?"

"Yes, because you are a coward!"

"I have had duels, and have evinced--"

"I tell you, you are a coward! You have already preferred infamy to
death. A day would come in which you would prefer the impunity for fresh
crimes to the life of another. This must not be,--I will not allow it. I
have come in time, at least, to save my name from public dishonour
hereafter. There must be an end to this."

"What do you mean, dearest father? How an end to this? What would you
imply?" exclaimed Florestan, still more alarmed at the fearful
expression and the increased pallor of his father's countenance.

Suddenly there was a violent blow struck on the cabinet door. Florestan
made a motion to go and open it, in order to put an end to a scene which
terrified him; but the comte seized him with a hand of iron, and held
him fast.

"Who knocks?" inquired the comte.

"In the name of the law, open! Open!" said a voice.

"That forgery, then, was not the last," exclaimed the comte, in a low
voice, and looking at his son with a terrible air.

"Yes, my father, I swear it!" exclaimed Florestan, endeavouring, but
vainly, to extricate himself from the vigorous grasp of his father.

"In the name of the law, open!" repeated the voice.

"What is it you seek?" demanded the comte.

"I am a commissary of police, and I have come to make a search after a
robbery of diamonds, of which M. de Saint-Remy is accused. M. Baudoin, a
jeweller, has proofs. If you do not open, sir, I shall be compelled to
force open the door."

"Already a thief! I was not then deceived," said the comte, in a low
voice. "I came to kill you,--I have delayed too long."

"Kill me?"

"There is already too much dishonour on my name,--it must end. I have
here two pistols; you must blow out your brains, or I will blow them
out, and I will say that you killed yourself in despair in order to
escape from shame."

And, with a fearful _sang-froid_, the comte drew a pistol from his
pocket, and, with the hand that was free, presented it to his son,
saying:

"Now an end to this, if, indeed, you are not a coward!"

After repeated and ineffectual attempts