“Indeed? Then your father ought to have met with you on the road, for it is exactly the same route which he himself took, and that is how we have been able to trace your journey to this place.”

“But,” said Andrea, “if my father had met me, I doubt if he would have recognized me; I must be somewhat altered since he last saw me.”

“Oh, the voice of nature,” said Monte Cristo.

“True,” interrupted the young man, “I had not looked upon it in that light.”