the thicket with my dark lantern; it was empty. I looked carefully
around; I was indeed alone,--no noise disturbed the silence but the owl,
whose piercing cry seemed to be calling up the phantoms of the night.
I tied my lantern to a forked branch I had noticed a year before at the
precise spot where I stopped to dig the hole.
"The grass had grown very thickly there during the summer, and when
autumn arrived no one had been there to mow it. Still one place where
the grass was thin attracted my attention; it evidently was there I had
turned up the ground. I went to work. The hour, then, for which I had
been waiting during the last year had at length arrived. How I worked,
how I hoped, how I struck every piece of turf, thinking to find some
resistance to my spade! But no, I found nothing, though I had made a
hole twice as large as the first. I thought I had been deceived--had
mistaken the spot. I turned around, I looked at the trees, I tried to
recall the details which had struck me at the time. A cold, sharp wind
whistled through the leafless branches, and yet the drops fell from my
forehead. I recollected that I was stabbed just as I was trampling
the ground to fill up the hole; while doing so I had leaned against a
laburnum; behind me was an artificial rockery, intended to serve as a
resting-place for persons walking in the garden; in falling, my hand,
relaxing its hold of the laburnum, felt the coldness of the stone. On my
right I saw the tree, behind me the rock. I stood in the same attitude,
and threw myself down. I rose, and again began digging and enlarging the
hole; still I found nothing, nothing--the chest was no longer there!"
"The chest no longer there?" murmured Madame Danglars, choking with
fear.
"Think not I contented myself with this one effort," continued
Villefort. "No; I searched the whole thicket. I thought the assassin,
having discovered the chest, and supposing it to be a treasure, had
intended carrying it off, but, perceiving his error, had dug another
hole, and deposited it there; but I could find nothing. Then the idea
struck me that he had not taken these precautions, and had simply thrown
it in a corner. In the last case I must wait for daylight to renew my
search. I remained in the room and waited."
"Oh, heavens!"
When daylight dawned I went down again. My first visit was to the
thicket. I hoped to find some traces which had escaped me in the
darkness. I had turned up the earth over a surface of more than twenty
feet square, and a depth of two feet. A laborer would not have done in
a day what occupied me an hour. But I could find nothing--absolutely
nothing. Then I renewed the search. Supposing it had been thrown aside,
it would probably be on the path which led to the little gate; but this
examination was as useless as the first, and with a bursting heart I
returned to the thicket, which now contained no hope for me."
"Oh," cried Madame Danglars, "it was enough to drive you mad!"
"I hoped for a moment that it might," said Villefort; "but that
happiness was denied me. However, recovering my strength and my ideas,
'Why,' said I, 'should that man have carried away the corpse?'"
"But you said," replied Madame Danglars, "he would require it as a
proof."
"Ah, no, madame, that could not be. Dead bodies are not kept a year;
they are shown to a magistrate, and the evidence is taken. Now, nothing
of the kind has happened."
"What then?" asked Hermine, trembling violently.
"Something more terrible, more fatal, more alarming for us--the child
was, perhaps, alive, and the assassin may have saved it!"
Madame Danglars uttered a piercing cry, and, seizing Villefort's hands,
exclaimed, "My child was alive?" said she; "you buried my child alive?
You were not certain my child was dead, and you buried it? Ah"--
Madame Danglars had risen, and stood before the procureur, whose hands
she wrung in her feeble grasp. "I know not; I merely suppose so, as I
might suppose anything else," replied Villefort with a look so fixed,
it indicated that his powerful mind was on the verge of despair and
madness. "Ah, my child, my poor child!" cried the baroness, falling
on her chair, and stifling her sobs in her handkerchief. Villefort,
becoming somewhat reassured, perceived that to avert the maternal storm
gathering over his head, he must inspire Madame Danglars with the terror
he felt. "You understand, then, that if it were so," said he, rising in
his turn, and approaching the baroness, to speak to her in a lower tone,
"we are lost. This child lives, and some one knows it lives--some one is
in possession of our secret; and since Monte Cristo speaks before us of
a child disinterred, when that child could not be found, it is he who is
in possession of our secret."
"Just God, avenging God!" murmured Madame Danglars.
Villefort's only answer was a stifled groan.
"But the child--the child, sir?" repeated the agitated mother.
"How I have searched for him," replied Villefort, wringing his hands;
"how I have called him in my long sleepless nights; how I have longed
for royal wealth to purchase a million of secrets from a million of men,
and to find mine among them! At last, one day, when for the hundredth
time I took up my spade, I asked myself again and again what the
Corsican could have done with the child. A child encumbers a fugitive;
perhaps, on perceiving it was still alive, he had thrown it into the
river."
"Impossible!" cried Madame Danglars: "a man may murder another out of
revenge, but he would not deliberately drown a child."
"Perhaps," continued Villefort, "he had put it in the foundling
hospital."
"Oh, yes, yes," cried the baroness; "my child is there!"
"I ran to the hospital, and learned that the same night--the night of
the 20th of September--a child had been brought there, wrapped in part
of a fine linen napkin, purposely torn in half. This portion of the
napkin was marked with half a baron's crown, and the letter H."
"Truly, truly," said Madame Danglars, "all my linen is marked thus;
Monsieur de Nargonne was a baronet, and my name is Hermine. Thank God,
my child was not then dead!"
"No, it was not dead."
"And you can tell me so without fearing to make me die of joy? Where is
the child?" Villefort shrugged his shoulders. "Do I know?" said he; "and
do you believe that if I knew I would relate to you all its trials and
all its adventures as would a dramatist or a novel writer? Alas, no,
I know not. A woman, about six months after, came to claim it with the
other half of the napkin. This woman gave all the requisite particulars,
and it was intrusted to her."
"But you should have inquired for the woman; you should have traced
her."
"And what do you think I did? I feigned a criminal process, and employed
all the most acute bloodhounds and skilful agents in search of her. They
traced her to Chalons, and there they lost her."
"They lost her?"
"Yes, forever." Madame Danglars had listened to this recital with a
sigh, a tear, or a shriek for every detail. "And this is all?" said she;
"and you stopped there?"
"Oh, no," said Villefort; "I never ceased to search and to inquire.
However, the last two or three years I had allowed myself some respite.
But now I will begin with more perseverance and fury than ever, since
fear urges me, not my conscience."
"But," replied Madame Danglars, "the Count of Monte Cristo can know
nothing, or he would not seek our society as he does."
"Oh, the wickedness of man is very great," said Villefort, "since it
surpasses the goodness of God. Did you observe that man's eyes while he
was speaking to us?"
"No."
"But have you ever watched him carefully?"
"Doubtless he is capricious, but that is all; one thing alone struck
me,--of all the exquisite things he placed before us, he touched
nothing. I might have suspected he was poisoning us."
"And you see you would have been deceived."
"Yes, doubtless."
"But believe me, that man has other projects. For that reason I
wished to see you, to speak to you, to warn you against every one, but
especially against him. Tell me," cried Villefort, fixing his eyes more
steadfastly on her than he had ever done before, "did you ever reveal to
any one our connection?"
"Never, to any one."
"You understand me," replied Villefort, affectionately; "when I say any
one,--pardon my urgency,--to any one living I mean?"
"Yes, yes, I understand very well," ejaculated the baroness; "never, I
swear to you."
"Were you ever in the habit of writing in the evening what had
transpired in the morning? Do you keep a journal?"
"No, my life has been passed in frivolity; I wish to forget it myself."
"Do you talk in your sleep?"
"I sleep soundly, like a child; do you not remember?" The color mounted
to the baroness's face, and Villefort turned awfully pale.
"It is true," said he, in so low a tone that he could hardly be heard.
"Well?" said the baroness.
"Well, I understand what I now have to do," replied Villefort. "In
less than one week from this time I will ascertain who this M. de Monte
Cristo is, whence he comes, where he goes, and why he speaks in our
presence of children that have been disinterred in a garden." Villefort
pronounced these words with an accent which would have made the
count shudder had he heard him. Then he pressed the hand the baroness
reluctantly gave him, and led her respectfully back to the door. Madame
Danglars returned in another cab to the passage, on the other side of
which she found her carriage, and her coachman sleeping peacefully on
his box while waiting for her.
Chapter 68. A Summer Ball.
The same day during the interview between Madame Danglars and the
procureur, a travelling-carriage entered the Rue du Helder, passed
through the gateway of No. 27, and stopped in the yard. In a moment the
door was opened, and Madame de Morcerf alighted, leaning on her son's
arm. Albert soon left her, ordered his horses, and having arranged his
toilet, drove to the Champs Elysees, to the house of Monte Cristo. The
count received him with his habitual smile. It was a strange thing that
no one ever appeared to advance a step in that man's favor. Those who
would, as it were, force a passage to his heart, found an impassable
barrier. Morcerf, who ran towards him with open arms, was chilled as he
drew near, in spite of the friendly smile, and simply held out his hand.
Monte Cristo shook it coldly, according to his invariable practice.
"Here I am, dear count."
"Welcome home again."
"I arrived an hour since."
"From Dieppe?"
"No, from Treport."
"Indeed?"
"And I have come at once to see you."
"That is extremely kind of you," said Monte Cristo with a tone of
perfect indifference.
"And what is the news?"
"You should not ask a stranger, a foreigner, for news."
"I know it, but in asking for news, I mean, have you done anything for
me?"
"Had you commissioned me?" said Monte Cristo, feigning uneasiness.
"Come, come," said Albert, "do not assume so much indifference. It is
said, sympathy travels rapidly, and when at Treport, I felt the electric
shock; you have either been working for me or thinking of me."
"Possibly," said Monte Cristo, "I have indeed thought of you, but the
magnetic wire I was guiding acted, indeed, without my knowledge."
"Indeed? Pray tell me how it happened?"
"Willingly. M. Danglars dined with me."
"I know it; to avoid meeting him, my mother and I left town."
"But he met here M. Andrea Cavalcanti."
"Your Italian prince?"
"Not so fast; M. Andrea only calls himself count."
"Calls himself, do you say?"
"Yes, calls himself."
"Is he not a count?"
"What can I know of him? He calls himself so. I, of course, give him the
same title, and every one else does likewise."
"What a strange man you are! What next? You say M. Danglars dined here?"
"Yes, with Count Cavalcanti, the marquis his father, Madame Danglars,
M. and Madame de Villefort,--charming people,--M. Debray, Maximilian
Morrel, and M. de Chateau-Renaud."
"Did they speak of me?"
"Not a word."
"So much the worse."
"Why so? I thought you wished them to forget you?"
"If they did not speak of me, I am sure they thought about me, and I am
in despair."
"How will that affect you, since Mademoiselle Danglars was not among the
number here who thought of you? Truly, she might have thought of you at
home."
"I have no fear of that; or, if she did, it was only in the same way in
which I think of her."
"Touching sympathy! So you hate each other?" said the count.
"Listen," said Morcerf--"if Mademoiselle Danglars were disposed to take
pity on my supposed martyrdom on her account, and would dispense with
all matrimonial formalities between our two families, I am ready to
agree to the arrangement. In a word, Mademoiselle Danglars would make a
charming mistress--but a wife--diable!"
"And this," said Monte Cristo, "is your opinion of your intended
spouse?"
"Yes; it is rather unkind, I acknowledge, but it is true. But as this
dream cannot be realized, since Mademoiselle Danglars must become my
