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 of an advocate.

Whom should he have?  Phillis would have liked to apply to the most illustrious, to him who, by his talent, authority, and success, would win all his cases.  But Saniel explained to her that workers of miracles were probably as difficult to find at the bar as in the medical profession, and that, if they did exist, they would expect a large fee.  To tell the truth, he would have willingly given the thirty thousand francs in the ‘poste restante’, or a large part of this sum, to give Florentin his liberty; but it would be imprudent to take out the bills at this moment, and he could not declare that he had thirty thousand francs, or even ten thousand.  He decided with Phillis to consult Brigard.