--the same which is there now on
the table."

"Oh, dear mother, it was a dream."

"So little was it a dream, that I stretched my hand towards the bell;
but when I did so, the shade disappeared; my maid then entered with a
light."

"But she saw no one?"

"Phantoms are visible to those only who ought to see them. It was the
soul of my husband!--Well, if my husband's soul can come to me, why
should not my soul reappear to guard my granddaughter? the tie is even
more direct, it seems to me."

"Oh, madame," said Villefort, deeply affected, in spite of himself, "do
not yield to those gloomy thoughts; you will long live with us, happy,
loved, and honored, and we will make you forget"--

"Never, never, never," said the marchioness. "When does M. d'Epinay
return?"

"We expect him every moment."

"It is well. As soon as he arrives inform me. We must be expeditious.
And then I also wish to see a notary, that I may be assured that all our
property returns to Valentine."

"Ah, grandmamma," murmured Valentine, pressing her lips on the burning
brow, "do you wish to kill me? Oh, how feverish you are; we must not
send for a notary, but for a doctor."

"A doctor?" said she, shrugging her shoulders, "I am not ill; I am
thirsty--that is all."

"What are you drinking, dear grandmamma?"

"The same as usual, my dear, my glass is there on the table--give it to
me, Valentine." Valentine poured the orangeade into a glass and gave it
to her grandmother with a certain degree of dread, for it was the same
glass she fancied that had been touched by the spectre. The marchioness
drained the glass at a single draught, and then turned on her pillow,
repeating,--"The notary, the notary!"

M. de Villefort left the room, and Valentine seated herself at the
bedside of her grandmother. The poor child appeared herself to require
the doctor she had recommended to her aged relative. A bright spot
burned in either cheek, her respiration was short and difficult, and her
pulse beat with feverish excitement. She was thinking of the despair
of Maximilian, when he should be informed that Madame de Saint-Meran,
instead of being an ally, was unconsciously acting as his enemy. More
than once she thought of revealing all to her grandmother, and she would
not have hesitated a moment, if Maximilian Morrel had been named Albert
de Morcerf or Raoul de Chateau-Renaud; but Morrel was of plebeian
extraction, and Valentine knew how the haughty Marquise de Saint