store the circulation.

CHAPTER XLV.

"WHAT WILL HE DO?"

Esperance was alone; his brow was thoughtful. He sank into a chair and
buried his face in his hands. Suddenly he started up, and drawing aside
the heavy portiere over a door, entered a small, dark room that seemed
to be an oratory.

Stained glass windows admitted an uncertain light. Esperance threw open
the sash and the daylight streamed in, and with it the delicious breeze
of spring. Esperance turned to the wall, on which hung a fine picture of
Monte-Cristo. Next this portrait hung one of his mother.

The young man spoke aloud. "Father!" he said, "mother! listen to me,
judge me and counsel me. Who and what am I? What is my future to be? Am
I guilty or am I--mad?"

Esperance shivered. Then throwing his head back proudly, he said, "No, I
am not mad, and yet I cannot understand myself. Oh! father, why did I
not have courage to speak to you frankly? You would have understood me
and encouraged me. I am afraid of life, I am afraid of myself--afraid of
the very name I bear, and of your greatness, the shadow of which falls
on me."

In the letter written by Monte-Cristo to his son, he had spoken the
truth. He had not thought sufficiently of developing the especial
characteristics of his son, and had made of him a philosopher.

Esperance had been compelled to reason calmly on all subjects, and the
inconsequence of youth had been frowned upon by his father.

Edmond Dantes had been young, vivacious and full of illusions and hopes.
Monte-Cristo forgot this, and forgot that Esperance was but twenty. He
had been kind and loving to Esperance; he had, as he believed, armed him
for the battle of life, but he had extinguished his boyishness and
engrafted the seeds of distrust.

Esperance never accused his father, but the result of this education was
that he was afraid of himself and others. Monte-Cristo saw his son
silent and sad at times, but he did not realize that it was because he
had quenched the youth in him and made him prematurely old. He moreover
suddenly became convinced that it was best for Esperance to leave him,
and therefore departed silently and mysteriously.

Esperance was armed against the tragedies of life, but not against its
daily annoyances.

Esperance had enormous muscular strength, and yet he was weak to resist
sorrow. He could have held his hand on a brazier of burning coals, but
he would have started at a pin-prick. And now that Mont