,--it is absurd. You are a ruined man; you were all but
arrested for the sum which you have just paid me, and which you have
scraped up I cannot tell from where; and this I have told to the holder
of the bill, who replied, that a certain great and very rich lady would
not allow you to remain in this embarrassment."

"Enough, sir! enough!"

"More infamous! more absurd! agreed."

"Well, sir, and what is required of me?"

"Why, to work out infamously an action infamously commenced. I have
consented to communicate this proposition to you, although it disgusts
me, as an honest man ought to feel disgust on such an occasion; but now
it is your affair. If you are guilty, choose between a criminal court
and the means of ransom offered to you; my duty is only an official one,
and I will not dirty my fingers any further in so foul a transaction.
The third party is called M. Petit-Jean, an oil merchant, who lives on
the banks of the Seine, Quai de Billy, No. 10. Make your arrangements
with him; you are fit to meet if you are a forger, as he declares."

M. de Saint-Remy had entered Jacques Ferrand's study with a lip all
scorn, and a head all pride. Although he had in his life committed
some shameful actions, he still retained a certain elevation of race,
and an instinctive courage, which had never forsaken him. At the
beginning of this conversation, considering the notary as an adversary
beneath him, he had been content to treat him with disdain; but, when
Jacques Ferrand began to talk of forgery, he felt annihilated; in his
turn he felt himself rode over by the notary. But for the entire command
of self which he possessed, he could not have concealed the terrible
impression which this unexpected revelation disclosed to him, for it
might have incalculable consequences to him,--consequences unsuspected
by the notary himself. After a moment of silence and reflection, he
resigned himself,--he, so haughty, so irritable, so vain of his
self-possession!--to beg of this coarse man, who had so roughly
addressed to him the stern language of probity:

"Sir, you give me a proof of your interest, for which I thank you, and I
regret that any hasty expressions should have escaped me," said M. de
Saint-Remy, with a tone of cordiality.

"I do not take the slightest interest in or for you," replied the
notary, brutally. "Your father is the soul of honour, and I would not
wish that in the depth of that solitude in which he lives, as they tell