"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."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 anotherrespectfully 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.A gloomy scene had indeed just passed at the house of M. de
Villefort. After the ladies had departed for the ball, whither all
the entreaties of Madame de Villefort had failed in persuading him
to accompany them, the procureur had shut himself up in his study,
according to his custom, with a heap of papers calculated to alarm
any one else, but which generally scarcely satisfied his inordinate
desires. But this time the papers were a mere matter of form.
Villefort had secluded himself, not to study, but to reflect; and
with the door locked and orders given that he should not be
disturbed excepting for important business, he sat down in his
arm-chair and began to ponder over the events, the remembrance of
which had during the last eight days filled his mind with so many
gloomy thoughts and bitter recollections. Then, instead of plunging
into the mass of documents piled before him, he opened the drawer
of his desk. touched a spring, and drew out a parcel of cherished
memoranda, amongst which he had carefully arranged, in characters
only known to himself, the names of all those who, either in his
political career, in money matters, at the bar, or in his
mysterious love affairs, had become his enemies.
Their number was formidable, now that he had begun to fear, and
yet these names, powerful though they were, had often caused him to
smile with the same kind of satisfaction experienced by a traveller
who from the summit of a mountain beholds at his feet the craggy
eminences, the almost impassable paths, and the fearful chasms,
through which he has so perilously climbed. When he had run over
all these names in his memory, again read and studied them,
commenting meanwhile upon his lists, he shook his head.
"No," he murmured, "none of my enemies would have waited so
patiently and laboriously for so long a space of time, that they
might now come and crush me with this secret. Sometimes, as Hamlet
says —
`Foul deeds will rise, Tho' all the earth o'erwhelm them to
men's eyes;'