“And now,” resumed Bertuccio, “your excellency may, perhaps, be able to comprehend that this place, which I revisit for the first time⁠—this garden, the actual scene of my crime⁠—must have given rise to reflections of no very agreeable nature, and produced that gloom and depression of spirits which excited the notice of your excellency, who was pleased to express a desire to know the cause. At this instant a shudder passes over me as I reflect that possibly I am now standing on the very grave in which lies M. de Villefort, by whose hand the ground was dug to receive the corpse of his child.”

“Everything is possible,” said Monte Cristo, rising from the bench on which he had been sitting; “even,” he added in an inaudible voice, “even that the procureur be not dead. The Abbé Busoni did right to send you to me,” he went on in his ordinary tone, “and you have done well in relating to me the whole of your history, as it will prevent my forming any erroneous opinions concerning you in future. As for that Benedetto, who so grossly belied his name, have you never made any effort to trace out whither he has gone, or what has become of him?”