isdom of the ancients, and
feel my way, for my friendship for your family and my respect for you
are as a twofold bandage over my eyes; well"--

"Oh, speak, speak, doctor; I shall have courage."

"Well, sir, you have in your establishment, or in your family, perhaps,
one of the frightful monstrosities of which each century produces only
one. Locusta and Agrippina, living at the same time, were an exception,
and proved the determination of providence to effect the entire ruin of
the Roman empire, sullied by so many crimes. Brunehilde and Fredegonde
were the results of the painful struggle of civilization in its infancy,
when man was learning to control mind, were it even by an emissary from
the realms of darkness. All these women had been, or were, beautiful.
The same flower of innocence had flourished, or was still flourishing,
on their brow, that is seen on the brow of the culprit in your house."
Villefort shrieked, clasped his hands, and looked at the doctor with a
supplicating air. But the latter went on without pity:--

"'Seek whom the crime will profit,' says an axiom of jurisprudence."

"Doctor," cried Villefort, "alas, doctor, how often has man's justice
been deceived by those fatal words. I know not why, but I feel that this
crime"--

"You acknowledge, then, the existence of the crime?"

"Yes, I see too plainly that it does exist. But it seems that it is
intended to affect me personally. I fear an attack myself, after all
these disasters."

"Oh, man," murmured d'Avrigny, "the most selfish of all animals, the
most personal of all creatures, who believes the earth turns, the sun
shines, and death strikes for him alone,--an ant cursing God from the
top of a blade of grass! And have those who have lost their lives lost
nothing?--M. de Saint-Meran, Madame de Saint-Meran, M. Noirtier"--

"How? M. Noirtier?"

"Yes; think you it was the poor servant's life was coveted? No, no;
like Shakespeare's 'Polonius,' he died for another. It was Noirtier the
lemonade was intended for--it is Noirtier, logically speaking, who drank
it. The other drank it only by accident, and, although Barrois is dead,
it was Noirtier whose death was wished for."

"But why did it not kill my father?"

"I told you one evening in the garden after Madame de Saint-Meran's
death--because his system is accustomed to that very poison, and the
dose was trifling to him, which would be fatal to another; because no
one knows, not even the assassin