"The actual holder of the bill is convinced you committed the forgery."
"Sir!"
"He declares that he has proof of this; and he came to me the day before yesterday, requesting me to see you, and offer to give up this forged document, under certain conditions. Up to this point all was straightforward, but what follows is not so, and I only speak to you now according to my instructions. He requires one hundred thousand francs (4,000l.) down this very day, or else to-morrow, at twelve o'clock at noon, the forged bill will be handed over to the king's attorney-general."
"This is infamous, sir!"
"It is more,—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: