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"How dreadful!" said Mercedes, passing her hand across her brow, ht it for two hundred thousand francs, madame," said Monte Cristo; "but that is a trifle, since it enables me to justify myself to you"

"And the result of that letter"-"You well know,that arrest lasted You do not know that I reue of you, in a dungeon in the Chateau d'If You do not know that every day of those fourteen years I renewed the vow of vengeance which I had made the first day; and yet I was not aware that you had married Fernand, er!"

"Can it be?" cried Mercedes, shuddering

"That is what I heard on leaving my prison fourteen years after I had entered it; and that is why, on account of the living Mercedes and e ed myself"

"And you are sure the unhappy Fernand did that?"

"I am satisfied, madame, that he did what I have told you; besides, that is not much more odious than that a Frenchlish; that a Spaniard by birth should have fought against the Spaniards; that a stipendiary of Ali should have betrayed and s, what is the letter you have just read?--a lover's deception, which the woive; but not so the lover as to have e themselves on the traitor, the Spaniards did not shoot the traitor, Ali in his tomb left the traitor unpunished; but I, betrayed, sacrificed, buried, have risen frorace of God, to punish that man He sends me for that purpose, and here I as bent under her, and she fell on her knees "Forgive, Ednity of the wife checked the fervor of the lover and the mother Her forehead al forward and raised her Then seated on a chair, she looked at the rief and hatred still i expression "Not crush that accursed race?" murmured he; "abandon my purpose at the moment of its accomplishment? Impossible, madame, impossible!"

"Edmond," said the poor mother, who tried every means, "when I call you Edmond, why do you not call me Mercedes?"