wall to conceal himself.”
“Did you see all that?”
“Remember my words: ‘If you return home safely, I shall believe God has forgiven you, and I will forgive you also.’ ”
“And you did not warn me!” cried Caderousse, raising himself on his elbows. “You knew I should be killed on leaving this house, and did not warn me!”
“No; for I saw God’s justice placed in the hands of Benedetto, and should have thought it sacrilege to oppose the designs of Providence.”
“God’s justice! Speak not of it, reverend sir. If God were just, you know how many would be punished who now escape.”
“Patience,” said the abbé, in a tone which made the dying man shudder; “have patience!”
Caderousse looked at him with amazement.
“Besides,” said the abbé, “God is merciful to all, as he has been to you; he is first a father, then a judge.”
“Do you then believe in God?” said Caderousse.
“Had I been so unhappy as not to believe in him until now,” said Monte Cristo, “I must believe on seeing you.”
Caderousse raised his clenched hands towards heaven.
“Listen,” said the abbé, extending his hand over the wounded man, as if to command him to believe; “this is what the God in whom, on your deathbed, you refuse to believe, has done for you—he gave you health, strength, regular employment, even friends—a life, in fact, which a man