at of vague ideas, and confused
forms, mingled with strange fancies, alone presented themselves before
her eyes.

During the daytime Valentine's perceptions remained tolerably clear,
owing to the constant presence of M. Noirtier, who caused himself to be
carried to his granddaughter's room, and watched her with his paternal
tenderness; Villefort also, on his return from the law courts,
frequently passed an hour or two with his father and child. At six
o'clock Villefort retired to his study, at eight M. d'Avrigny himself
arrived, bringing the night draught prepared for the young girl, and
then M. Noirtier was carried away. A nurse of the doctor's choice
succeeded them, and never left till about ten or eleven o'clock, when
Valentine was asleep. As she went down-stairs she gave the keys of
Valentine's room to M. de Villefort, so that no one could reach the
sick-room excepting through that of Madame de Villefort and little
Edward.

Every morning Morrel called on Noirtier to receive news of Valentine,
and, extraordinary as it seemed, each day found him less uneasy.
Certainly, though Valentine still labored under dreadful nervous
excitement, she was better; and moreover, Monte Cristo had told him
when, half distracted, he had rushed to the count's house, that if
she were not dead in two hours she would be saved. Now four days had
elapsed, and Valentine still lived.

The nervous excitement of which we speak pursued Valentine even in her
sleep, or rather in that state of somnolence which succeeded her waking
hours; it was then, in the silence of night, in the dim light shed from
the alabaster lamp on the chimney-piece, that she saw the shadows pass
and repass which hover over the bed of sickness, and fan the fever
with their trembling wings. First she fancied she saw her stepmother
threatening her, then Morrel stretched his arms towards her; sometimes
mere strangers, like the Count of Monte Cristo came to visit her; even
the very furniture, in these moments of delirium, seemed to move, and
this state lasted till about three o'clock in the morning, when a deep,
heavy slumber overcame the young girl, from which she did not awake till
daylight. On the evening of the day on which Valentine had learned of
the flight of Eugenie and the arrest of Benedetto,--Villefort having
retired as well as Noirtier and d'Avrigny,--her thoughts wandered in a
confused maze, alternately reviewing her own situation and the events
she had just hear