away by his friendship, "you do not know him,
and I do. He is the most estimable, the most trustworthy creature in the
world, and I will venture to say, there is not a better seaman in all
the merchant service. Oh, M. de Villefort, I beseech your indulgence for
him."

Villefort, as we have seen, belonged to the aristocratic party at
Marseilles, Morrel to the plebeian; the first was a royalist, the other
suspected of Bonapartism. Villefort looked disdainfully at Morrel, and
replied,--

"You are aware, monsieur, that a man may be estimable and trustworthy in
private life, and the best seaman in the merchant service, and yet be,
politically speaking, a great criminal. Is it not true?"

The magistrate laid emphasis on these words, as if he wished to apply
them to the owner himself, while his eyes seemed to plunge into
the heart of one who, interceding for another, had himself need of
indulgence. Morrel reddened, for his own conscience was not quite clear
on politics; besides, what Dantes had told him of his interview with the
grand-marshal, and what the emperor had said to him, embarrassed him. He
replied, however,--

"I entreat you, M. de Villefort, be, as you always are, kind and
equitable, and give him back to us soon." This give us sounded
revolutionary in the deputy's ears.

"Ah, ah," murmured he, "is Dantes then a member of some Carbonari
society, that his protector thus employs the collective form? He was, if
I recollect, arrested in a tavern, in company with a great many others."
Then he added, "Monsieur, you may rest assured I shall perform my duty
impartially, and that if he be innocent you shall not have appealed
to me in vain; should he, however, be guilty, in this present epoch,
impunity would furnish a dangerous example, and I must do my duty."

As he had now arrived at the door of his own house, which adjoined
the Palais de Justice, he entered, after having, coldly saluted the
shipowner, who stood, as if petrified, on the spot where Villefort had
left him. The ante-chamber was full of police agents and gendarmes, in
the midst of whom, carefully watched, but calm and smiling, stood the
prisoner. Villefort traversed the ante-chamber, cast a side glance at
Dantes, and taking a packet which a gendarme offered him, disappeared,
saying, "Bring in the prisoner."

Rapid as had been Villefort's glance, it had served to give him an idea
of the man he was about to interrogate. He had recognized intelligence
in