id Monte Cristo with a
searching look.

"I have already had the honor of telling you I was," said Morrel.

The count looked around him. "Your pistols are beside your desk," said
Monte Cristo, pointing with his finger to the pistols on the table.

"I am on the point of starting on a journey," replied Morrel
disdainfully.

"My friend," exclaimed Monte Cristo in a tone of exquisite sweetness.

"Sir?"

"My friend, my dear Maximilian, do not make a hasty resolution, I
entreat you."

"I make a hasty resolution?" said Morrel, shrugging his shoulders; "is
there anything extraordinary in a journey?"

"Maximilian," said the count, "let us both lay aside the mask we have
assumed. You no more deceive me with that false calmness than I impose
upon you with my frivolous solicitude. You can understand, can you not,
that to have acted as I have done, to have broken that glass, to have
intruded on the solitude of a friend--you can understand that, to have
done all this, I must have been actuated by real uneasiness, or rather
by a terrible conviction. Morrel, you are going to destroy yourself!"

"Indeed, count," said Morrel, shuddering; "what has put this into your
head?"

"I tell you that you are about to destroy yourself," continued the
count, "and here is proof of what I say;" and, approaching the desk, he
removed the sheet of paper which Morrel had placed over the letter he
had begun, and took the latter in his hands.

Morrel rushed forward to tear it from him, but Monte Cristo perceiving
his intention, seized his wrist with his iron grasp. "You wish to
destroy yourself," said the count; "you have written it."

"Well," said Morrel, changing his expression of calmness for one of
violence--"well, and if I do intend to turn this pistol against myself,
who shall prevent me--who will dare prevent me? All my hopes are
blighted, my heart is broken, my life a burden, everything around me is
sad and mournful; earth has become distasteful to me, and human voices
distract me. It is a mercy to let me die, for if I live I shall lose
my reason and become mad. When, sir, I tell you all this with tears of
heartfelt anguish, can you reply that I am wrong, can you prevent my
putting an end to my miserable existence? Tell me, sir, could you have
the courage to do so?"

"Yes, Morrel," said Monte Cristo, with a calmness which contrasted
strangely with the young man's excitement; "yes, I would do so."

"You?" exclaimed Morrel, with incre