“Well,” said Château-Renaud, “I was not wrong just now then, when I said that houses had souls and faces like men, and that their exteriors carried the impress of their characters. This house was gloomy because it was remorseful: it was remorseful because it concealed a crime.”

“Who said it was a crime?” asked Villefort, with a last effort.

“How? is it not a crime to bury a living child in a garden?” cried Monte Cristo. “And pray what do you call such an action?”

“But who said it was buried alive?”

“Why bury it there if it were dead? This garden has never been a cemetery.”

“What is done to infanticides in this country?” asked Major Cavalcanti innocently.

“Oh, their heads are soon cut off,” said Danglars.