“I was called to see him on his dying bed, that I might administer to him the consolations of religion.”

“And of what did he die?” asked Caderousse in a choking voice.

“Of what, think you, do young and strong men die in prison, when they have scarcely numbered their thirtieth year, unless it be of imprisonment?” Caderousse wiped away the large beads of perspiration that gathered on his brow.

“But the strangest part of the story is,” resumed the abbé, “that Dantès, even in his dying moments, swore by his crucified Redeemer, that he was utterly ignorant of the cause of his detention.”

“And so he was,” murmured Caderousse. “How should he have been otherwise? Ah, sir, the poor fellow told you the truth.”