ed during the last four nights, Valentine,"
said the count. "But, oh, how I passed that time! Oh, the wretched hours
I have endured--the torture to which I have submitted when I saw the
deadly poison poured into your glass, and how I trembled lest you should
drink it before I could find time to throw it away!"

"Sir," said Valentine, at the height of her terror, "you say you endured
tortures when you saw the deadly poison poured into my glass; but if you
saw this, you must also have seen the person who poured it?"

"Yes." Valentine raised herself in bed, and drew over her chest, which
appeared whiter than snow, the embroidered cambric, still moist with the
cold dews of delirium, to which were now added those of terror. "You saw
the person?" repeated the young girl. "Yes," repeated the count.

"What you tell me is horrible, sir. You wish to make me believe
something too dreadful. What?--attempt to murder me in my father's
house, in my room, on my bed of sickness? Oh, leave me, sir; you
are tempting me--you make me doubt the goodness of providence--it is
impossible, it cannot be!"

"Are you the first that this hand has stricken? Have you not seen
M. de Saint-Meran, Madame de Saint-Meran, Barrois, all fall? Would not
M. Noirtier also have fallen a victim, had not the treatment he has
been pursuing for the last three years neutralized the effects of the
poison?"

"Oh, heaven," said Valentine; "is this the reason why grandpapa has made
me share all his beverages during the last month?"

"And have they all tasted of a slightly bitter flavor, like that of
dried orange-peel?"

"Oh, yes, yes!"

"Then that explains all," said Monte Cristo. "Your grandfather knows,
then, that a poisoner lives here; perhaps he even suspects the person.
He has been fortifying you, his beloved child, against the fatal
effects of the poison, which has failed because your system was already
impregnated with it. But even this would have availed little against a
more deadly medium of death employed four days ago, which is generally
but too fatal."

"But who, then, is this assassin, this murderer?"

"Let me also ask you a question. Have you never seen any one enter your
room at night?"

"Oh, yes; I have frequently seen shadows pass close to me, approach,
and disappear; but I took them for visions raised by my feverish
imagination, and indeed when you entered I thought I was under the
influence of delirium."

"Then you do not know who it is