something. Oh, I cannot go without taking leave of her; I cannot die without confiding her to someone.”
He quietly regained his seat, and wrote under the other lines:
“I bequeath to Maximilian Morrel, captain of Spahis—and son of my former patron, Pierre Morrel, shipowner at Marseilles—the sum of twenty millions, a part of which may be offered to his sister Julie and brother-in-law Emmanuel, if he does not fear this increase of fortune may mar their happiness. These twenty millions are concealed in my grotto at Monte Cristo, of which Bertuccio knows the secret. If his heart is free, and he will marry Haydée, the daughter of Ali Pasha of Yanina, whom I have brought up with the love of a father, and who has shown the love and tenderness of a daughter for me, he will thus accomplish my last wish. This will has already constituted Haydée heiress of the rest of my fortune, consisting of lands, funds in England, Austria, and Holland, furniture in my different palaces and houses, and which without the twenty millions and the legacies to my servants, may still amount to sixty millions.”
He was finishing the last line when a cry behind him made him start, and the pen fell from his hand.
“Haydée,” said he, “did you read it?”
“Oh, my lord,” said she, “why are you writing thus at such an hour? Why are you bequeathing all your fortune to me? Are you going to leave me?”
“I am going on a journey, dear child,” said Monte Cristo, with an expression of infinite tenderness and melancholy; “and if any misfortune should happen to me—”