tuous voice.
"But I have always observed that poisoners were cowards. Can you be a
coward,--you who have had the courage to witness the death of two old
men and a young girl murdered by you?"

"Sir! sir!"

"Can you be a coward?" continued Villefort, with increasing excitement,
"you, who could count, one by one, the minutes of four death agonies?
You, who have arranged your infernal plans, and removed the beverages
with a talent and precision almost miraculous? Have you, then, who have
calculated everything with such nicety, have you forgotten to calculate
one thing--I mean where the revelation of your crimes will lead you to?
Oh, it is impossible--you must have saved some surer, more subtle and
deadly poison than any other, that you might escape the punishment
that you deserve. You have done this--I hope so, at least." Madame de
Villefort stretched out her hands, and fell on her knees.

"I understand," he said, "you confess; but a confession made to the
judges, a confession made at the last moment, extorted when the crime
cannot be denied, diminishes not the punishment inflicted on the
guilty!"

"The punishment?" exclaimed Madame de Villefort, "the punishment,
monsieur? Twice you have pronounced that word!"

"Certainly. Did you hope to escape it because you were four times
guilty? Did you think the punishment would be withheld because you are
the wife of him who pronounces it?--No, madame, no; the scaffold awaits
the poisoner, whoever she may be, unless, as I just said, the poisoner
has taken the precaution of keeping for herself a few drops of her
deadliest potion." Madame de Villefort uttered a wild cry, and a hideous
and uncontrollable terror spread over her distorted features. "Oh,
do not fear the scaffold, madame," said the magistrate; "I will not
dishonor you, since that would be dishonor to myself; no, if you have
heard me distinctly, you will understand that you are not to die on the
scaffold."

"No, I do not understand; what do you mean?" stammered the unhappy
woman, completely overwhelmed. "I mean that the wife of the first
magistrate in the capital shall not, by her infamy, soil an unblemished
name; that she shall not, with one blow, dishonor her husband and her
child."

"No, no--oh, no!"

"Well, madame, it will be a laudable action on your part, and I will
thank you for it!"

"You will thank me--for what?"

"For what you have just said."

"What did I say? Oh, my brain whirls; I no longer unde