Page 264 (1/1)

"Fernand, do you mean?" replied Monte Cristo, with bitter irony; "since we are recalling names, let us remember them all" Monte Cristo had pronounced the name of Fernand with such an expression of hatred that Mercedes felt a thrill of horror run through every vein "You see, Edmond, I am not mistaken, and have cause to say, 'Spare my son!'"

"And who told you, ainst your son?"

"No one, in truth; but a uessed all; I followed hi to the opera, and, concealed in a parquet box, have seen all"

"If you have seen all, madame, you know that the son of Fernand has publicly insulted me," said Monte Cristo with awful calmness

"Oh, for pity's sake!"

"You have seen that he would have thrown his glove in my face if Morrel, one of my friends, had not stopped hiuessed who you are,--he attributes his father's misfortunes to you"

"Madame, you are mistaken, they are not misfortunes,--it is a punishment It is not I who strike M de Morcerf; it is providence which punishes him"

"And why do you represent providence?" cried Mercedes "Why do you reets? What are Yanina and its vizier to you, Ed Ali Tepelini?"

"Ah, madame," replied Monte Cristo, "all this is an affair between the French captain and the daughter of Vasiliki It does not concern e myself, it is not on the French captain, or the Count of Morcerf, but on the fisherman Fernand, the husband of Mercedes the Catalane"

"Ah, sir!" cried the countess, "how terrible a vengeance for a fault which fatality made me come to any one, it is to me, who had not fortitude to bear your absence and my solitude"

"But," exclaimed Monte Cristo, "as I absent? And ere you alone?"

"Because you had been arrested, Edmond, and were a prisoner"

"And as I arrested? Why was I a prisoner?"

"I do not know," said Mercedes "You do not, madame; at least, I hope not But I will tell you I was arrested and became a prisoner because, under the arbor of La Reserve, the day before I was to lars wrote this letter, which the fisherman Fernand himself posted" Monte Cristo went to a secretary, opened a drawer by a spring, froinal color, and the ink of which had become of a rusty hue--this he placed in the hands of Mercedes It was Danglars' letter to the king's attorney, which the Count of Monte Cristo, disguised as a clerk froainst Edmond Dantes, on the day he had paid the two hundred thousand francs to M de Boville Mercedes read with terror the following lines:-"The king's attorney is inforion that one Edmond Dantes, second in command on board the Pharaon, this day arrived fro touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, is the bearer of a letter from Murat to the usurper, and of another letter from the usurper to the Bonapartist club in Paris Ample corroboration of this state the above-mentioned Edmond Dantes, who either carries the letter for Paris about with him, or has it at his father's abode Should it not be found in possession of either father or son, then it will assuredly be discovered in the cabin belonging to the said Dantes on board the Pharaon"