The stranger cast one look around her, to be certain that they were quite alone; then bending as if she would have knelt, and joining her hands, she said with an accent of despair:
“Edmond, you will not kill my son!”
The count retreated a step, uttered a slight exclamation, and let fall the pistol he held.
“What name did you pronounce then, Madame de Morcerf?” said he.
“Yours!” cried she, throwing back her veil—“yours, which I alone, perhaps, have not forgotten. Edmond, it is not Madame de Morcerf who is come to you, it is Mercédès.”
“Mercédès is dead, madame,” said Monte Cristo; “I know no one now of that name.”
“Mercédès lives, sir, and she remembers, for she alone recognized you when she saw you, and even before she saw you, by your voice, Edmond—by the simple sound of your voice; and from that moment she has followed your steps, watched you, feared you, and she needs not to inquire what hand has dealt the blow which now strikes M. de Morcerf.”
“Fernand, do you mean?” replied Monte Cristo, with bitter irony; “since we are recalling names, let us remember them all.” Monte Cristo had pronounced the name of Fernand with such an expression of hatred that Mercédès felt a thrill of horror run through every vein.
“You see, Edmond, I am not mistaken, and have cause to say, ‘Spare my son!’ ”
“And who told you, madame, that I have any hostile intentions against your son?”