“Is he safe?” returned she, looking at Victurnien. “Yes.” She kissed her nephew; a few tears fell on his forehead. Then she went. “My good Chesnel,” said the Count, when they began to talk of business, “what are your hundred thousand francs in such a position as mine? You do not know the full extent of my troubles, I think.” Victurnien explained the situation. Chesnel was thunderstruck. But for the strength of his devotion, he would have succumbed to this blow. Tears streamed from the eyes that might well have had no tears left to shed. For a few moments he was a child again, for a few moments he was bereft of his senses; he stood like a man who should find his own house on fire, and through a window see the cradle ablaze and hear the hiss of the flames on his children’s curls. He rose to his full height--il se dressa en pied, as Amyot would have said; he seemed to grow taller; he raised his withered hands and wrung them despairingly and wildly. “If only your father may die and never know this, young man! To be a forger is enough; a parricide you must not be. Fly, you say? No. They would condemn you for contempt of court! Oh, wretched boy! Why did you not forge _my_ signature? _I_ would have paid; I should not have taken the bill to the public prosecutor.--Now I can do nothing. You have brought me to a stand in the lowest pit in hell!--Du Croisier! What will come of it? What is to be done?--If you had killed a man, there might be some help for it. But forgery--_forgery_! And time--the time is flying,” he went on, shaking his fist towards the old clock. “You will want a sham passport now. One crime leads to another. First,” he added, after a pause, “first of all we must save the house of d’Esgrignon.” “But the money is still in Mme. de Maufrigneuse’s keeping,” exclaimed Victurnien. “Ah!” exclaimed Chesnel. “Well, there is some hope left--a faint hope. Could we soften du Croisier, I wonder, or buy him over? He shall have all the lands if he likes. I will go to him; I will wake him and offer him all we have.--Besides, it was not you who forged that bill; it was I. I will go to jail; I am too old for the hulks, they can only put me in prison.” “But the body of the bill is in my handwriting,” objected Victurnien, without a sign of surprise at this reckless devotion.