“Listen,” cried he; “pity me⁠—help me! No, my daughter is not guilty. If you drag us both before a tribunal I will still say, ‘No, my daughter is not guilty;⁠—there is no crime in my house. I will not acknowledge a crime in my house; for when crime enters a dwelling, it is like death⁠—it does not come alone.’ Listen. What does it signify to you if I am murdered? Are you my friend? Are you a man? Have you a heart? No, you are a physician! Well, I tell you I will not drag my daughter before a tribunal, and give her up to the executioner! The bare idea would kill me⁠—would drive me like a madman to dig my heart out with my fingernails! And if you were mistaken, doctor⁠—if it were not my daughter⁠—if I should come one day, pale as a spectre, and say to you, ‘Assassin, you have killed my child!’⁠—hold⁠—if that should happen, although I am a Christian, M. d’Avrigny, I should kill myself.”

“Well,” said the doctor, after a moment’s silence, “I will wait.”

Villefort looked at him as if he had doubted his words.