e opened
his mouth to speak, but finding it impossible to give utterance to the
innumerable ideas that occupied his brain, he went out, thrusting his
hands through his hair in such a manner that Villefort and d'Avrigny,
for a moment diverted from the engrossing topic, exchanged glances,
which seemed to say,--"He is mad!"

But in less than five minutes the staircase groaned beneath an
extraordinary weight. Morrel was seen carrying, with superhuman
strength, the arm-chair containing Noirtier up-stairs. When he reached
the landing he placed the arm-chair on the floor and rapidly rolled it
into Valentine's room. This could only have been accomplished by means
of unnatural strength supplied by powerful excitement. But the most
fearful spectacle was Noirtier being pushed towards the bed, his face
expressing all his meaning, and his eyes supplying the want of every
other faculty. That pale face and flaming glance appeared to Villefort
like a frightful apparition. Each time he had been brought into contact
with his father, something terrible had happened. "See what they have
done!" cried Morrel, with one hand leaning on the back of the chair, and
the other extended towards Valentine. "See, my father, see!"

Villefort drew back and looked with astonishment on the young man, who,
almost a stranger to him, called Noirtier his father. At this moment
the whole soul of the old man seemed centred in his eyes which became
bloodshot; the veins of the throat swelled; his cheeks and temples
became purple, as though he was struck with epilepsy; nothing was
wanting to complete this but the utterance of a cry. And the cry issued
from his pores, if we may thus speak--a cry frightful in its silence.
D'Avrigny rushed towards the old man and made him inhale a powerful
restorative.

"Sir," cried Morrel, seizing the moist hand of the paralytic, "they ask
me who I am, and what right I have to be here. Oh, you know it, tell
them, tell them!" And the young man's voice was choked by sobs. As for
the old man, his chest heaved with his panting respiration. One could
have thought that he was undergoing the agonies preceding death. At
length, happier than the young man, who sobbed without weeping, tears
glistened in the eyes of Noirtier. "Tell them," said Morrel in a hoarse
voice, "tell them that I am her betrothed. Tell them she was my beloved,
my noble girl, my only blessing in the world. Tell them--oh, tell them,
that corpse belongs to me!"

The y