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—”
The count stopped.
“Well?” asked the young girl, with an authoritative tone the count had never observed before, and which startled him.
“Well, if any misfortune happen to me,” replied Monte Cristo, “I wish my daughter to be happy.”
Haydée smiled sorrowfully, and shook her head.
“Do you think of dying, my lord?” said she.
“The wise man, my child, has said,
‘It is good to think of death.’ ”
“Well, if you die,” said she, “bequeath your fortune to others, for if you die I shall require nothing;” and, taking the paper, she tore it in four pieces, and threw it into the middle of the room. Then, the effort having exhausted her strength, she fell, not asleep this time, but fainting on the floor.
The count leaned over her and raised her in his arms; and seeing that sweet pale face, those lovely eyes closed, that beautiful form motionless and to all appearance lifeless, the idea occurred to him for the first time, that perhaps she loved him otherwise than as a daughter loves a father.
“Alas,” murmured he, with intense suffering, “I might, then, have been happy yet.”
Then he carried Haydée to her room, resigned her to the