"Yes, because you are a coward!"
"I have fought duels, and I have proved—"
"I tell you, you are a coward! You have preferred infamy to death! A day will come when you will prefer the impunity of your new crimes to the life of others! That cannot be; I arrive in time to save, henceforth, at least, my name from public dishonor. It must be finished."
"How, father, finished! what do you mean to say?" cried Florestan, more and more alarmed at the expression of his father and his increasing paleness.
Suddenly some one knocked violently at the door of the cabinet. Florestan made a movement, as if to open it, but his father seized him with an iron hand, and withheld him.
"Who knocks?" demanded the former.
"In the name of the law, open, open!" said a voice.
"This forgery was not, then, the last?" said the count, in a low voice, looking at his son with a terrible scowl.
"Yes, father, I swear it," answered Florestan, trying in vain to release himself from the hold.
"In the name of the law open!" repeated the voice.