“Well,” said the Count, astonished at his perseverance, which he could not understand, and looking still more earnestly at Maximilian, “let it begin again—it is like the house of the Atreidae; God has condemned them, and they must submit to their punishment. They will all disappear, like the fabrics children build with cards, and which fall, one by one, under the breath of their builder, even if there are two hundred of them. Three months since it was M. de Saint-Méran; Madame de Saint-Méran two months since; the other day it was Barrois; today, the old Noirtier, or young Valentine.”
“You knew it?” cried Morrel, in such a paroxysm of terror that Monte Cristo started—he whom the falling heavens would have found unmoved; “you knew it, and said nothing?”
“And what is it to me?” replied Monte Cristo, shrugging his shoulders; “do I know those people? and must I lose the one to save the other? Faith, no, for between the culprit and the victim I have no choice.”
“But I,” cried Morrel, groaning with sorrow, “I love her!”
“You love?—whom?” cried Monte Cristo, starting to his feet, and seizing the two hands which Morrel was raising towards heaven.
“I love most fondly—I love madly—I love as a man who would give his lifeblood to spare her a tear—I love Valentine de Villefort, who is being murdered at this moment! Do you understand me? I love her; and I ask God and you how I can save her?”
Monte Cristo uttered a cry which those only can conceive who have heard the roar of a wounded lion. “Unhappy man,” cried he, wringing his hands in his turn; “you love Valentine—that daughter of an accursed race!”
Never had Morrel witnessed such an expression—never had so terrible an eye flashed before his face—never had the genius of terror he had so