Monte Cristo waited, according to his usual custom, untilDuprez had sung his famous "Suivez-moi;" then he rose andwent out. Morrel took leave of him at the door, renewing hispromise to be with him the next morning at seven o'clock,and to bring Emmanuel. Then he stepped into his coupe, calmand smiling, and was at home in five minutes. No one whoknew the count could mistake his expression when, onentering, he said, "Ali, bring me my pistols with the ivorycross."

Ali brought the box to his master, who examined the weaponswith a solicitude very natural to a man who is about tointrust his life to a little powder and shot. These werepistols of an especial pattern, which Monte Cristo had hadmade for target practice in his own room. A cap wassufficient to drive out the bullet, and from the adjoiningroom no one would have suspected that the count was, assportsmen would say, keeping his hand in. He was just takingone up and looking for the point to aim at on a little ironplate which served him as a target, when his study dooropened, and Baptistin entered. Before he had spoken a word,the count saw in the next room a veiled woman, who hadfollowed closely after Baptistin, and now, seeing the countwith a pistol in his hand and swords on the table, rushedin. Baptistin looked at his master, who made a sign to him,and he went out, closing the door after him. "Who are you,madame?" said the count to the veiled woman.

The stranger cast one look around her, to be certain thatthey were quite alone; then bending as if she would haveknelt, and joining her hands, she said with an accent ofdespair, "Edmond, you will not kill my son?" The countretreated a step, uttered a slight exclamation, and let fallthe pistol he held. "What name did you pronounce then,Madame de Morcerf?" said he. "Yours!" cried she, throwingback her veil, - "yours, which I alone, perhaps, have notforgotten. Edmond, it is not Madame de Morcerf who is cometo you, it is Mercedes."

"Mercedes is dead, madame," said Monte Cristo; "I know noone now of that name."

"Mercedes lives, sir, and she remembers, for she alonerecognized you when she saw you, and even before she sawyou, by your voice, Edmond, - by the simple sound of yourvoice; and from that moment she has followed your steps,watched you, feared you, and she needs not to inquire whathand has dealt the blow which now strikes M. de Morcerf."

"Fernand, do you mean?" replied Monte Cristo, with bitterirony; "since we are recalling names, let us remember themall." Monte Cristo had pronounced the name of Fernand withsuch an expression of hatred that Mercedes felt a thrill ofhorror run through every vein. "You see, Edmond, I am notmistaken, and have cause to say, `Spare my son!'"

"And who told you, madame, that I have any hostileintentions against your son?"

"No one, in truth; but a mother has twofold sight. I guessedall; I followed him this evening to the opera, and,concealed in a parquet box, have seen all."

"If you have seen all, madame, you know that the son ofFernand has publicly insulted me," said Monte Cristo withawful calmness.

"Oh, for pity's sake!"

"You have seen that he would have thrown his glove in myface if Morrel, one of my friends, had not stopped him."

"Listen to me, my son has also guessed who you are, - heattributes his father's misfortunes to you."

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

"And why do you represent providence?" cried Mercedes. "Whydo you remember when it forgets? What are Yanina and itsvizier to you, Edmond? What injury his Fernand Mondego doneyou in betraying Ali Tepelini?"

"Ah, madame," replied Monte Cristo, "all this is an affairbetween the French captain and the daughter of Vasiliki. Itdoes not concern me, you are right; and if I have sworn torevenge myself, it is not on the French captain, or theCount of Morcerf, but on the fisherman Fernand, the husbandof Mercedes the Catalane."

"Ah, sir!" cried the countess, "how terrible a vengeance fora fault which fatality made me commit! - for I am the onlyculprit, Edmond, and if you owe revenge to any one, it is tome, who had not fortitude to bear your absence and mysolitude."

"But," exclaimed Monte Cristo, "why was I absent? And whywere you alone?"

"Because you had been arrested, Edmond, and were aprisoner."

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

"I do not know," said Mercedes. "You do not, madame; atleast, I hope not. But I will tell you. I was arrested andbecame a prisoner because, under the arbor of La Reserve,the day before I was to marry you, a man named Danglarswrote this letter, which the fisherman Fernand himselfposted." Monte Cristo went to a secretary, opened a drawerby a spring, from which he took a paper which had lost itsoriginal color, and the ink of which had become of a rustyhue - this he placed in the hands of Mercedes. It wasDanglars' letter to the king's attorney, which the Count ofMonte Cristo, disguised as a clerk from the house of Thomson& French, had taken from the file against Edmond Dantes, onthe day he had paid the two hundred thousand francs to M. deBoville. Mercedes read with terror the following lines: -

"The king's attorney is informed by a friend to the throneand religion that one Edmond Dantes, second in command onboard the Pharaon, this day arrived from Smyrna, afterhaving touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, is the bearer ofa letter from Murat to the usurper, and of another letterfrom the usurper to the Bonapartist club in Paris. Amplecorroboration of this statement may be obtained by arrestingthe above-mentioned Edmond Dantes, who either carries theletter for Paris about with him, or has it at his father'sabode. Should it not be found in possession of either fatheror son, then it will assuredly be discovered in the cabinbelonging to the said Dantes on board the Pharaon."

"How dreadful!" said Mercedes, passing her hand across herbrow, moist with perspiration; "and that letter" -

"I bought it for two hundred thousand francs, madame," saidMonte Cristo; "but that is a trifle, since it enables me tojustify myself to you."

"And the result of that letter" -

"You well know, madame, was my arrest; but you do not knowhow long that arrest lasted. You do not know that I remainedfor fourteen years within a quarter of a league of you, in adungeon in the Chateau d'If. You do not know that every dayof those fourteen years I renewed the vow of vengeance whichI had made the first day; and yet I was not aware that youhad married Fernand, my calumniator, and that my father haddied of hunger!"

"Can it be?" cried Mercedes, shuddering.

"That is what I heard on leaving my prison fourteen yearsafter I had entered it; and that is why, on account of theliving Mercedes and my deceased father, I have sworn torevenge myself on Fernand, and - I have revenged 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 Frenchmanby adoption should pass over to the English; that a Spaniardby birth should have fought against the Spaniards; that astipendiary of Ali should have betrayed and murdered Ali.Compared with such things, what is the letter you have justread? - a lover's deception, which the woman who hasmarried that man ought certainly to forgive; but not so thelover who was to have married her. Well, the French did notavenge themselves on the traitor, the Spaniards did notshoot the traitor, Ali in his tomb left the traitorunpunished; but I, betrayed, sacrificed, buried, have risenfrom my tomb, by the grace of God, to punish that man. Hesends me for that purpose, and here I am." The poor woman'shead and arms fell; her legs bent under her, and she fell onher knees. "Forgive, Edmond, forgive for my sake, who loveyou still!"

The dignity of the wife checked the fervor of the lover andthe mother. Her forehead almost touched the carpet, when thecount sprang forward and raised her. Then seated on a chair,she looked at the manly countenance of Monte Cristo, onwhich grief and hatred still impressed a threateningexpression. "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, "whenI call you Edmond, why do you not call me Mercedes?"

"Mercedes!" repeated Monte Cristo; "Mercedes! Well yes, youare right; that name has still its charms, and this is thefirst time for a long period that I have pronounced it sodistinctly. Oh, Mercedes, I have uttered your name with thesigh of melancholy, with the groan of sorrow, with the lasteffort of despair; I have uttered it when frozen with cold,crouched on the straw in my dungeon; I have uttered it,consumed with heat, rolling on the stone floor of my prison.Mercedes, I must revenge myself, for I suffered fourteenyears, - fourteen years I wept, I cursed; now I tell you,Mercedes, I must revenge myself."

The count, fearing to yield to the entreaties of her he hadso ardently loved, called his sufferings to the assistanceof his hatred. "Revenge yourself, then, Edmond," cried thepoor mother; "but let your vengeance fall on the culprits,- on him, on me, but not on my son!"

"It is written in the good book," said Monte Cristo, "thatthe sins of the fathers shall fall upon their children tothe third and fourth generation. Since God himself dictatedthose words to his prophet, why should I seek to make myselfbetter than God?"

"Edmond," continued Mercedes, with her arms extended towardsthe count, "since I first knew you, I have adored your name,have respected your memory. Edmond, my friend, do not compelme to tarnish that noble and pure image reflectedincessantly on the mirror of my heart. Edmond, if you knewall the prayers I have addressed to God for you while Ithought you were living and since I have thought you must bedead! Yes, dead, alas! I imagined your dead body buried atthe foot of some gloomy tower, or cast to the bottom of apit by hateful jailers, and I wept! What could I do for you,Edmond, besides pray and weep? Listen; for ten years Idreamed each night the same dream. I had been told that youhad endeavored to escape; that you had taken the place ofanother prisoner; that you had slipped into the windingsheet of a dead body; that you had been thrown alive fromthe top of the Chateau d'If, and that the cry you uttered asyou dashed upon the rocks first revealed to your jailersthat they were your murderers. Well, Edmond, I swear to you,by the head of that son for whom I entreat your pity, - Edmond, for ten years I saw every night every detail of thatfrightful tragedy, and for ten years I heard every night thecry which awoke me, shuddering and cold. And I, too, Edmond- oh! believe me - guilty as I was - oh, yes, I, too,have suffered much!"

"Have you known what it is to have your father starve todeath in your absence?" cried Monte Cristo, thrusting hishands into his hair; "have you seen the woman you lovedgiving her hand to your rival, while you were perishing atthe bottom of a dungeon?"

"No," interrupted Mercedes, "but I have seen him whom Iloved on the point of murdering my son." Mercedes utteredthese words with such deep anguish, with an accent of suchintense despair, that Monte Cristo could not restrain a sob.The lion was daunted; the avenger was conquered. "What doyou ask of me?" said he, - "your son's life? Well, he shalllive!" Mercedes uttered a cry which made the tears startfrom Monte Cristo's eyes; but these tears disappeared almostinstantaneously, for, doubtless, God had sent some angel tocollect them - far more precious were they in his eyes thanthe richest pearls of Guzerat and Ophir.

"Oh," said she, seizing the count's hand and raising it toher lips; "oh, thank you, thank you, Edmond! Now you areexactly what I dreamt you were, - the man I always loved.Oh, now I may say so!"

"So much the better," replied Monte Cristo; "as that poorEdmond will not have long to be loved by you. Death is aboutto return to the tomb, the phantom to retire in darkness."

"What do you say, Edmond?"

"I say, since you command me, Mercedes, I must die."

"Die? and why so? Who talks of dying? Whence have you theseideas of death?"

"You do not suppose that, publicly outraged in the face of awhole theatre, in the presence of your friends and those ofyour son - challenged by a boy who will glory in myforgiveness as if it were a victory - you do not supposethat I can for one moment wish to live. What I most lovedafter you, Mercedes, was myself, my dignity, and thatstrength which rendered me superior to other men; thatstrength was my life. With one word you have crushed it, andI die."

"But the duel will not take place, Edmond, since youforgive?"

"It will take place," said Monte Cristo, in a most solemntone; "but instead of your son's blood to stain the ground,mine will flow." Mercedes shrieked, and sprang towards MonteCristo, but, suddenly stopping, "Edmond," said she, "thereis a God above us, since you live and since I have seen youagain; I trust to him from my heart. While waiting hisassistance I trust to your word; you have said that my sonshould live, have you not?"

"Yes, madame, he shall live," said Monte Cristo, surprisedthat without more emotion Mercedes had accepted the heroicsacrifice he made for her. Mercedes extended her hand to thecount.

"Edmond," said she, and her eyes were wet with tears whilelooking at him to whom she spoke, "how noble it is of you,how great the action you have just performed, how sublime tohave taken pity on a poor woman who appealed to you withevery chance against her, Alas, I am grown old with griefmore than with years, and cannot now remind my Edmond by asmile, or by a look, of that Mercedes whom he once spent somany hours in contemplating. Ah, believe me, Edmond, as Itold you, I too have suffered much; I repeat, it ismelancholy to pass one's life without having one joy torecall, without preserving a single hope; but that provesthat all is not yet over. No, it is not finished; I feel itby what remains in my heart. Oh, I repeat it, Edmond; whatyou have just done is beautiful - it is grand; it issublime."

"Do you say so now, Mercedes? - then what would you say ifyou knew the extent of the sacrifice I make to you? Supposethat the Supreme Being, after having created the world andfertilized chaos, had paused in the work to spare an angelthe tears that might one day flow for mortal sins from herimmortal eyes; suppose that when everything was in readinessand the moment had come for God to look upon his work andsee that it was good - suppose he had snuffed out the sunand tossed the world back into eternal night - then - eventhen, Mercedes, you could not imagine what I lose insacrificing my life at this moment." Mercedes looked at thecount in a way which expressed at the same time herastonishment, her admiration, and her gratitude. MonteCristo pressed his forehead on his burning hands, as if hisbrain could no longer bear alone the weight of its thoughts."Edmond," said Mercedes, "I have but one word more to say toyou." The count smiled bitterly. "Edmond," continued she,"you will see that if my face is pale, if my eyes are dull,if my beauty is gone; if Mercedes, in short, no longerresembles her former self in her features, you will see thather heart is still the same. Adieu, then, Edmond; I havenothing more to ask of heaven - I have seen you again, andhave found you as noble and as great as formerly you were.Adieu, Edmond, adieu, and thank you."

But the count did not answer. Mercedes opened the door ofthe study and had disappeared before he had recovered fromthe painful and profound revery into which his thwartedvengeance had plunged him. The clock of the Invalides struckone when the carriage which conveyed Madame de Morcerf awayrolled on the pavement of the Champs-Elysees, and made MonteCristo raise his head. "What a fool I was," said he, "not totear my heart out on the day when I resolved to avengemyself!"