fortitude to
bear your absence and my solitude."

"But," exclaimed Monte Cristo, "why was I absent? And why were you
alone?"

"Because you had been arrested, Edmond, and were a prisoner."

"And why was I arrested? Why was I a prisoner?"

"I do not know," said Mercedes. "You do not, madame; at least, I hope
not. But I will tell you. I was arrested and became a prisoner because,
under the arbor of La Reserve, the day before I was to marry you, a man
named Danglars wrote this letter, which the fisherman Fernand himself
posted." Monte Cristo went to a secretary, opened a drawer by a spring,
from which he took a paper which had lost its original color, and the
ink of which had become of a rusty hue--this he placed in the hands
of Mercedes. It was Danglars' letter to the king's attorney, which the
Count of Monte Cristo, disguised as a clerk from the house of Thomson &
French, had taken from the file against Edmond Dantes, on the day he
had paid the two hundred thousand francs to M. de Boville. Mercedes read
with terror the following lines:--

"The king's attorney is informed by a friend to the throne and religion
that one Edmond Dantes, second in command on board the Pharaon, this day
arrived from Smyrna, after having touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo,
is the bearer of a letter from Murat to the usurper, and of another
letter from the usurper to the Bonapartist club in Paris. Ample
corroboration of this statement may be obtained by arresting the
above-mentioned Edmond Dantes, who either carries the letter for Paris
about with him, or has it at his father's abode. Should it not be
found in possession of either father or son, then it will assuredly
be discovered in the cabin belonging to the said Dantes on board the
Pharaon."

"How dreadful!" said Mercedes, passing her hand across her brow, moist
with perspiration; "and that letter"--

"I bought it for two hundred thousand francs, madame," said Monte
Cristo; "but that is a trifle, since it enables me to justify myself to
you."

"And the result of that letter"--

"You well know, madame, was my arrest; but you do not know how long that
arrest lasted. You do not know that I remained for fourteen years within
a quarter of a league of you, in a dungeon in the Chateau d'If. You do
not know that every day of those fourteen years I renewed the vow of
vengeance which I had made the first day; and yet I was not aware that
you had married Fernand, my calumniator, and that m