Let us leave the banker driving his horses at their fullestspeed, and follow Madame Danglars in her morning excursion.We have said that at half-past twelve o'clock MadameDanglars had ordered her horses, and had left home in thecarriage. She directed her course towards the Faubourg SaintGermain, went down the Rue Mazarine, and stopped at thePassage du Pont-Neuf. She descended, and went through thepassage. She was very plainly dressed, as would be the casewith a woman of taste walking in the morning. At the RueGuenegaud she called a cab, and directed the driver to go tothe Rue de Harlay. As soon as she was seated in the vehicle,she drew from her pocket a very thick black veil, which shetied on to her straw bonnet. She then replaced the bonnet,and saw with pleasure, in a little pocket-mirror, that herwhite complexion and brilliant eyes were alone visible. Thecab crossed the Pont-Neuf and entered the Rue de Harlay bythe Place Dauphine; the driver was paid as the door opened,and stepping lightly up the stairs Madame Danglars soonreached the Salle des Pas-Perdus.

There was a great deal going on that morning, and manybusiness-like persons at the Palais; business-like personspay very little attention to women, and Madame Danglarscrossed the hall without exciting any more attention thanany other woman calling upon her lawyer. There was a greatpress of people in M. de Villefort's ante-chamber, butMadame Danglars had no occasion even to pronounce her name.The instant she appeared the door-keeper rose, came to her,and asked her whether she was not the person with whom theprocureur had made an appointment; and on her affirmativeanswer being given, he conducted her by a private passage toM. de Villefort's office. The magistrate was seated in anarm-chair, writing, with his back towards the door; he didnot move as he heard it open, and the door-keeper pronouncethe words, "Walk in, madame," and then reclose it; but nosooner had the man's footsteps ceased, than he started up,drew the bolts, closed the curtains, and examined everycorner of the room. Then, when he had assured himself thathe could neither be seen nor heard, and was consequentlyrelieved of doubts, he said, - "Thanks, madame, - thanksfor your punctuality; "and he offered a chair to MadameDanglars, which she accepted, for her heart beat soviolently that she felt nearly suffocated.

"It is a long time, madame," said the procureur, describinga half-circle with his chair, so as to place himself exactlyopposite to Madame Danglars, - "it is a long time since Ihad the pleasure of speaking alone with you, and I regretthat we have only now met to enter upon a painfulconversation."

"Nevertheless, sir, you see I have answered your firstappeal, although certainly the conversation must be muchmore painful for me than for you." Villefort smiledbitterly.

"It is true, then," he said, rather uttering his thoughtsaloud than addressing his companion, - "it is true, then,that all our actions leave their traces - some sad, othersbright - on our paths; it is true that every step in ourlives is like the course of an insect on the sands; - itleaves its track! Alas, to many the path is traced bytears."

"Sir," said Madame Danglars, "you can feel for my emotion,can you not? Spare me, then, I beseech you. When I look atthis room, - whence so many guilty creatures have departed,trembling and ashamed, when I look at that chair beforewhich I now sit trembling and ashamed, - oh, it requiresall my reason to convince me that I am not a very guiltywoman and you a menacing judge." Villefort dropped his headand sighed. "And I," he said, "I feel that my place is notin the judge's seat, but on the prisoner's stool."

"You?" said Madame Danglars.

"Yes, I."

"I think, sir, you exaggerate your situation," said MadameDanglars, whose beautiful eyes sparkled for a moment. "Thepaths of which you were just speaking have been traced byall young men of ardent imaginations. Besides the pleasure,there is always remorse from the indulgence of our passions,and, after all, what have you men to fear from all this? theworld excuses, and notoriety ennobles you."

"Madame," replied Villefort, "you know that I am nohypocrite, or, at least, that I never deceive without areason. If my brow be severe, it is because many misfortuneshave clouded it; if my heart be petrified, it is that itmight sustain the blows it has received. I was not so in myyouth, I was not so on the night of the betrothal, when wewere all seated around a table in the Rue du Cours atMarseilles. But since then everything has changed in andabout me; I am accustomed to brave difficulties, and, in theconflict to crush those who, by their own free will, or bychance, voluntarily or involuntarily, interfere with me inmy career. It is generally the case that what we mostardently desire is as ardently withheld from us by those whowish to obtain it, or from whom we attempt to snatch it.Thus, the greater number of a man's errors come before himdisguised under the specious form of necessity; then, aftererror has been committed in a moment of excitement, ofdelirium, or of fear, we see that we might have avoided andescaped it. The means we might have used, which we in ourblindness could not see, then seem simple and easy, and wesay, `Why did I not do this, instead of that?' Women, on thecontrary, are rarely tormented with remorse; for thedecision does not come from you, - your misfortunes aregenerally imposed upon you, and your faults the results ofothers' crimes."

"In any case, sir, you will allow," replied Madame Danglars,"that, even if the fault were alone mine, I last nightreceived a severe punishment for it."

"Poor thing," said Villefort, pressing her hand, "it was toosevere for your strength, for you were twice overwhelmed,and yet" -

"Well?"

"Well, I must tell you. Collect all your courage, for youhave not yet heard all."

"Ah," exclaimed Madame Danglars, alarmed, "what is theremore to hear?"

"You only look back to the past, and it is, indeed, badenough. Well, picture to yourself a future more gloomy still- certainly frightful, perhaps sanguinary." The baronessknew how calm Villefort naturally was, and his presentexcitement frightened her so much that she opened her mouthto scream, but the sound died in her throat. "How has thisterrible past been recalled?" cried Villefort; "how is itthat it has escaped from the depths of the tomb and therecesses of our hearts, where it was buried, to visit usnow, like a phantom, whitening our cheeks and flushing ourbrows with shame?"

"Alas," said Hermine, "doubtless it is chance."

"Chance?" replied Villefort; "No, no, madame, there is nosuch thing as chance."

"Oh, yes; has not a fatal chance revealed all this? Was itnot by chance the Count of Monte Cristo bought that house?Was it not by chance he caused the earth to be dug up? Is itnot by chance that the unfortunate child was disinterredunder the trees? - that poor innocent offspring of mine,which I never even kissed, but for whom I wept many, manytears. Ah, my heart clung to the count when he mentioned thedear spoil found beneath the flowers."

"Well, no, madame, - this is the terrible news I have totell you," said Villefort in a hollow voice - "no, nothingwas found beneath the flowers; there was no childdisinterred - no. You must not weep, no, you must notgroan, you must tremble!"

"What can you mean?" asked Madame Danglars, shuddering.

"I mean that M. de Monte Cristo, digging underneath thesetrees, found neither skeleton nor chest, because neither ofthem was there!"

"Neither of them there?" repeated Madame Danglars, herstaring, wide-open eyes expressing her alarm.

"Neither of them there!" she again said, as though strivingto impress herself with the meaning of the words whichescaped her.

"No," said Villefort, burying his face in his hands, "no, ahundred times no!"

"Then you did not bury the poor child there, sir? Why didyou deceive me? Where did you place it? tell me - where?"

"There! But listen to me - listen - and you will pity mewho has for twenty years alone borne the heavy burden ofgrief I am about to reveal, without casting the leastportion upon you."

"Oh, you frighten me! But speak; I will listen."

"You recollect that sad night, when you were half-expiringon that bed in the red damask room, while I, scarcely lessagitated than you, awaited your delivery. The child wasborn, was given to me - motionless, breathless, voiceless;we thought it dead." Madame Danglars moved rapidly, asthough she would spring from her chair, but Villefortstopped, and clasped his hands as if to implore herattention. "We thought it dead," he repeated; "I placed itin the chest, which was to take the place of a coffin; Idescended to the garden, I dug a hole, and then flung itdown in haste. Scarcely had I covered it with earth, whenthe arm of the Corsican was stretched towards me; I saw ashadow rise, and, at the same time, a flash of light. I feltpain; I wished to cry out, but an icy shiver ran through myveins and stifled my voice; I fell lifeless, and fanciedmyself killed. Never shall I forget your sublime courage,when, having returned to consciousness, I dragged myself tothe foot of the stairs, and you, almost dying yourself, cameto meet me. We were obliged to keep silent upon the dreadfulcatastrophe. You had the fortitude to regain the house,assisted by your nurse. A duel was the pretext for my wound.Though we scarcely expected it, our secret remained in ourown keeping alone. I was taken to Versailles; for threemonths I struggled with death; at last, as I seemed to clingto life, I was ordered to the South. Four men carried mefrom Paris to Chalons, walking six leagues a day; Madame deVillefort followed the litter in her carriage. At Chalons Iwas put upon the Saone, thence I passed on to he Rhone,whence I descended, merely with the current, to Arles; atArles I was again placed on my litter, and continued myjourney to Marseilles. My recovery lasted six months. Inever heard you mentioned, and I did not dare inquire foryou. When I returned to Paris, I learned that you, the widowof M. de Nargonne, had married M. Danglars.

"What was the subject of my thoughts from the timeconsciousness returned to me? Always the same - always thechild's corpse, coming every night in my dreams, rising fromthe earth, and hovering over the grave with menacing lookand gesture. I inquired immediately on my return to Paris;the house had not been inhabited since we left it, but ithad just been let for nine years. I found the tenant. Ipretended that I disliked the idea that a house belonging tomy wife's father and mother should pass into the hands ofstrangers. I offered to pay them for cancelling the lease;they demanded 6,000 francs. I would have given 10,000 - Iwould have given 20,000. I had the money with me; I made thetenant sign the deed of resilition, and when I had obtainedwhat I so much wanted, I galloped to Auteuil.

"No one had entered the house since I had left it. It wasfive o'clock in the afternoon; I ascended into the red room,and waited for night. There all the thoughts which haddisturbed me during my year of constant agony came back withdouble force. The Corsican, who had declared the vendettaagainst me, who had followed me from Nimes to Paris, who hadhid himself in the garden, who had struck me, had seen medig the grave, had seen me inter the child, - he mightbecome acquainted with your person, - nay, he might eventhen have known it. Would he not one day make you pay forkeeping this terrible secret? Would it not be a sweetrevenge for him when he found that I had not died from theblow of his dagger? It was therefore necessary, beforeeverything else, and at all risks, that I should cause alltraces of the past to disappear - that I should destroyevery material vestige; too much reality would always remainin my recollection. It was for this I had annulled the lease- it was for this I had come - it was for this I waswaiting. Night arrived; I allowed it to become quite dark. Iwas without a light in that room; when the wind shook allthe doors, behind which I continually expected to see somespy concealed, I trembled. I seemed everywhere to hear yourmoans behind me in the bed, and I dared not turn around. Myheart beat so violently that I feared my wound would open.At length, one by one, all the noises in the neighborhoodceased. I understood that I had nothing to fear, that Ishould neither be seen nor heard, so I decided upondescending to the garden.

"Listen, Hermine; I consider myself as brave as most men,but when I drew from my breast the little key of thestaircase, which I had found in my coat - that little keywe both used to cherish so much, which you wished to havefastened to a golden ring - when I opened the door, and sawthe pale moon shedding a long stream of white light on thespiral staircase like a spectre, I leaned against the wall,and nearly shrieked. I seemed to be going mad. At last Imastered my agitation. I descended the staircase step bystep; the only thing I could not conquer was a strangetrembling in my knees. I grasped the railings; if I hadrelaxed my hold for a moment, I should have fallen. Ireached the lower door. Outside this door a spade was placedagainst the wall; I took it, and advanced towards thethicket. I had provided myself with a dark lantern. In themiddle of the lawn I stopped to light it, then I continuedmy path.

"It was the end of November, all the verdure of the gardenhad disappeared, the trees were nothing more than skeletonswith their long bony arms, and the dead leaves sounded onthe gravel under my feet. My terror overcame me to such adegree as I approached the thicket, that I took a pistolfrom my pocket and armed myself. I fancied continually thatI saw the figure of the Corsican between the branches. Iexamined the thicket with my dark lantern; it was empty. Ilooked carefully around; I was indeed alone, - no noisedisturbed the silence but the owl, whose piercing cry seemedto be calling up the phantoms of the night. I tied mylantern to a forked branch I had noticed a year before atthe 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 myattention; it evidently was there I had turned up theground. I went to work. The hour, then, for which I had beenwaiting during the last year had at length arrived. How Iworked, how I hoped, how I struck every piece of turf,thinking to find some resistance to my spade! But no, Ifound nothing, though I had made a hole twice as large asthe first. I thought I had been deceived - had mistaken thespot. I turned around, I looked at the trees, I tried torecall the details which had struck me at the time. A cold,sharp wind whistled through the leafless branches, and yetthe drops fell from my forehead. I recollected that I wasstabbed just as I was trampling the ground to fill up thehole; while doing so I had leaned against a laburnum; behindme was an artificial rockery, intended to serve as aresting-place for persons walking in the garden; in falling,my hand, relaxing its hold of the laburnum, felt thecoldness of the stone. On my right I saw the tree, behind methe rock. I stood in the same attitude, and threw myselfdown. I rose, and again began digging and enlarging thehole; still I found nothing, nothing - the chest was nolonger 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. Ithought the assassin, having discovered the chest, andsupposing it to be a treasure, had intended carrying it off,but, perceiving his error, had dug another hole, anddeposited it there; but I could find nothing. Then the ideastruck me that he had not taken these precautions, and hadsimply thrown it in a corner. In the last case I must waitfor daylight to renew my search. I remained the room andwaited."

"Oh, heavens!"

When daylight dawned I went down again. My first visit wasto the thicket. I hoped to find some traces which hadescaped me in the darkness. I had turned up the earth over asurface of more than twenty feet square, and a depth of twofeet. A laborer would not have done in a day what occupiedme an hour. But I could find nothing - absolutely nothing.Then I renewed the search. Supposing it had been thrownaside, it would probably be on the path which led to thelittle gate; but this examination was as useless as thefirst, 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 youmad!"

"I hoped for a moment that it might," said Villefort; "butthat happiness was denied me. However, recovering mystrength and my ideas, `Why,' said I, `should that man havecarried away the corpse?'"

"But you said," replied Madame Danglars, "he would requireit as a proof."

"Ah, no, madame, that could not be. Dead bodies are not kepta year; they are shown to a magistrate, and the evidence istaken. 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 havesaved it!"

Madame Danglars uttered a piercing cry, and, seizingVillefort's hands, exclaimed, "My child was alive?" saidshe; "you buried my child alive? You were not certain mychild 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; Imerely suppose so, as I might suppose anything else,"replied Villefort with a look so fixed, it indicated thathis powerful mind was on the verge of despair and madness."Ah, my child, my poor child!" cried the baroness, fallingon her chair, and stifling her sobs in her handkerchief.Villefort, becoming somewhat reassured, perceived that toavert the maternal storm gathering over his head, he mustinspire Madame Danglars with the terror he felt. "Youunderstand, then, that if it were so," said he, rising inhis turn, and approaching the baroness, to speak to her in alower tone, "we are lost. This child lives, and some oneknows it lives - some one is in possession of our secret;and since Monte Cristo speaks before us of a childdisinterred, when that child could not be found, it is hewho 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 agitatedmother.

"How I have searched for him," replied Villefort, wringinghis hands; "how I have called him in my long sleeplessnights; how I have longed for royal wealth to purchase amillion of secrets from a million of men, and to find mineamong them! At last, one day, when for the hundredth time Itook up my spade, I asked myself again and again what theCorsican could have done with the child. A child encumbers afugitive; perhaps, on perceiving it was still alive, he hadthrown it into the river."

"Impossible!" cried Madame Danglars: "a man may murderanother out of revenge, but he would not deliberately drowna child."

"Perhaps," continued Villefort, "he had put it in thefoundling 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 beenbrought there, wrapped in part of a fine linen napkin,purposely torn in half. This portion of the napkin wasmarked with half a baron's crown, and the letter H."

"Truly, truly," said Madame Danglars, "all my linen ismarked thus; Monsieur de Nargonne was a baronet, and my nameis 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 ofjoy? Where is the child?" Villefort shrugged his shoulders."Do I know?" said he; "and do you believe that if I knew Iwould relate to you all its trials and all its adventures aswould a dramatist or a novel writer? Alas, no, I know not. Awoman, about six months after, came to claim it with theother half of the napkin. This woman gave all the requisiteparticulars, and it was intrusted to her."

"But you should have inquired for the woman; you should havetraced her."

"And what do you think I did? I feigned a criminal process,and employed all the most acute bloodhounds and skilfulagents in search of her. They traced her to Chalons, andthere they lost her."

"They lost her?"

"Yes, forever." Madame Danglars had listened to this recitalwith a sigh, a tear, or a shriek for every detail. "And thisis all?" said she; "and you stopped there?"

"Oh, no," said Villefort; "I never ceased to search and toinquire. However, the last two or three years I had allowedmyself some respite. But now I will begin with moreperseverance and fury than ever, since fear urges me, not myconscience."

"But," replied Madame Danglars, "the Count of Monte Cristocan know nothing, or he would not seek our society as hedoes."

"Oh, the wickedness of man is very great," said Villefort,"since it surpasses the goodness of God. Did you observethat 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 thingalone struck me, - of all the exquisite things he placedbefore us, he touched nothing. I might have suspected he waspoisoning us."

"And you see you would have been deceived."

"Yes, doubtless."

"But believe me, that man has other projects. For thatreason I wished to see you, to speak to you, to warn youagainst every one, but especially against him. Tell me,"cried Villefort, fixing his eyes more steadfastly on herthan he had ever done before, "did you ever reveal to anyone our connection?"

"Never, to any one."

"You understand me," replied Villefort, affectionately;"when I say any one, - pardon my urgency, - to any oneliving 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 whathad transpired in the morning? Do you keep a journal?"

"No, my life has been passed in frivolity; I wish to forgetit myself."

"Do you talk in your sleep?"

"I sleep soundly, like a child; do you not remember?" Thecolor mounted to the baroness's face, and Villefort turnedawfully pale.

"It is true," said he, in so low a tone that he could hardlybe heard.

"Well?" said the baroness.

"Well, I understand what I now have to do," repliedVillefort. "In less than one week from this time I willascertain who this M. de Monte Cristo is, whence he comes,where he goes, and why he speaks in our presence of childrenthat have been disinterred in a garden." Villefortpronounced these words with an accent which would have madethe count shudder had he heard him. Then he pressed the handthe baroness reluctantly gave him, and led her respectfullyback to the door. Madame Danglars returned in another cab tothe passage, on the other side of which she found hercarriage, and her coachman sleeping peacefully on his boxwhile waiting for her.