l.

But it was not enough that he was safe; he must prevent Florentin from
being unjustly condemned for a crime of which he was innocent. It was
a great deal that he should be imprisoned, that his sister should be in
despair, and his mother ill from chagrin; but if he should be sent to
the scaffold or to the galleys, it would be too much. In itself the
death of Caffie was a small thing; it became atrocious if it led to such
an ending.

He did not wish this to happen, and he would do everything not only to
prevent the condemnation, but to shorten the imprisonment.

It was this sentiment that he obeyed in going to see the judge; but
the manner in which he was received, showing him that the law was
not disposed to let its hypothesis be changed by a simple medical
demonstration, threw him into a state of uneasiness and perplexity.

Without doubt, any one else in his place would have let things take
their course, and since the law had a criminal with which it contented
itself, would have done nothing to release him. While it followed its
hypothesis to prove the criminality of the one it held, it would not
look elsewhere; when it had condemned him, all would be finished; the
Caffie affair would be buried, as Caffie himself was buried; silence and
oblivion would give him security. The crime punished, the conscience of
the public satisfied, it would ask for no more, not even to know if the
debt was paid by the one who really owed it; it was paid, and that was
sufficient. But he was not "any one else," and if he found the death of
this old scamp legitimate, it was on the condition that Florentin did
not pay for it, from whom he had not profited.

Florentin must be released as soon as possible, and it was his duty
to interest himself in his behalf--his imperative duty not only toward
Phillis, but toward himself.

He told Phillis that until Florentin came before the jury, he could
do nothing, or almost nothing. When the time came, he would assert his
authority, and speaking in the name of science, he would prove to the
jury that the story of the button was an invention of the police, who
were pushed to extremes, and would not bear examination; but until then
the poor boy remained at Mazas, and however assured one might be at this
moment of an acquittal, an immediate 'ordonnance de non-lieu' was of
more value, if it could be obtained.

For this the intervention and direction of a doctor were of little use;
it required that