Leaning on his elbow, he laughed to himself as he heard Ferminard moving so as to get the sou from his pocket to open it.
Then he heard the voice of Ferminard who was speaking to himself. “It is gone—he must have taken it—never!—yet it is gone.”
The astonishment evident in Ferminard’s voice at the trick that had been played on him acted upon Rochefort just as the sudden stripping of the bedclothes from a person asleep acts on the sleeper.
It was not stupidity on the part of Ferminard that had prevented him from guessing with what instrument the bar had been cut, it was his complete belief in Rochefort’s honour. His mind, of its own accord, could not imagine the Comte de Rochefort playing him a trick like that, and his voice now betrayed what was passing in his mind.
Had Ferminard been a suspicious man, and had he discovered the abstraction of the saw on his own account, anything he might have said would not have shown Rochefort what he saw now.
He felt as though, by some horrible accident, he had shot and injured his own good faith, fair name and honour.
“Mon Dieu!” said he. “What have I done!”