erf?" said he. "Yours!" cried she, throwing back her veil,--"yours,
which I alone, perhaps, have not forgotten. Edmond, it is not Madame de
Morcerf who is come to you, it is Mercedes."

"Mercedes is dead, madame," said Monte Cristo; "I know no one now of
that name."

"Mercedes lives, sir, and she remembers, for she alone recognized
you when she saw you, and even before she saw you, by your voice,
Edmond,--by the simple sound of your voice; and from that moment she
has followed your steps, watched you, feared you, and she needs not to
inquire what hand has dealt the blow which now strikes M. de Morcerf."

"Fernand, do you mean?" replied Monte Cristo, with bitter irony; "since
we are recalling names, let us remember them all." Monte Cristo had
pronounced the name of Fernand with such an expression of hatred that
Mercedes felt a thrill of horror run through every vein. "You see,
Edmond, I am not mistaken, and have cause to say, 'Spare my son!'"

"And who told you, madame, that I have any hostile intentions against
your son?"

"No one, in truth; but a mother has twofold sight. I guessed all; I
followed him this evening to the opera, and, concealed in a parquet box,
have seen all."

"If you have seen all, madame, you know that the son of Fernand has
publicly insulted me," said Monte Cristo with awful calmness.

"Oh, for pity's sake!"

"You have seen that he would have thrown his glove in my face if Morrel,
one of my friends, had not stopped him."

"Listen to me, my son has also guessed who you are,--he attributes his
father's misfortunes to you."

"Madame, you are mistaken, they are not misfortunes,--it is a
punishment. It is not I who strike M. de Morcerf; it is providence which
punishes him."

"And why do you represent providence?" cried Mercedes. "Why do you
remember when it forgets? What are Yanina and its vizier to you, Edmond?
What injury his Fernand Mondego done you in betraying Ali Tepelini?"

"Ah, madame," replied Monte Cristo, "all this is an affair between the
French captain and the daughter of Vasiliki. It does not concern me,
you are right; and if I have sworn to revenge myself, it is not on the
French captain, or the Count of Morcerf, but on the fisherman Fernand,
the husband of Mercedes the Catalane."

"Ah, sir!" cried the countess, "how terrible a vengeance for a fault
which fatality made me commit!--for I am the only culprit, Edmond, and
if you owe revenge to any one, it is to me, who had not