her son."

Villefort could not believe his eyes,--he could not believe his reason;
he dragged himself towards the child's body, and examined it as a
lioness contemplates its dead cub. Then a piercing cry escaped from his
breast, and he cried, "Still the hand of God." The presence of the
two victims alarmed him; he could not bear solitude shared only by two
corpses. Until then he had been sustained by rage, by his strength of
mind, by despair, by the supreme agony which led the Titans to scale the
heavens, and Ajax to defy the gods. He now arose, his head bowed beneath
the weight of grief, and, shaking his damp, dishevelled hair, he who had
never felt compassion for any one determined to seek his father, that he
might have some one to whom he could relate his misfortunes,--some one
by whose side he might weep. He descended the little staircase with
which we are acquainted, and entered Noirtier's room. The old man
appeared to be listening attentively and as affectionately as his
infirmities would allow to the Abbe Busoni, who looked cold and calm, as
usual. Villefort, perceiving the abbe, passed his hand across his
brow. He recollected the call he had made upon him after the dinner at
Auteuil, and then the visit the abbe had himself paid to his house on
the day of Valentine's death. "You here, sir!" he exclaimed; "do you,
then, never appear but to act as an escort to death?"

Busoni turned around, and, perceiving the excitement depicted on the
magistrate's face, the savage lustre of his eyes, he understood that
the revelation had been made at the assizes; but beyond this he was
ignorant. "I came to pray over the body of your daughter."

"And now why are you here?"

"I come to tell you that you have sufficiently repaid your debt, and
that from this moment I will pray to God to forgive you, as I do."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Villefort, stepping back fearfully, "surely
that is not the voice of the Abbe Busoni!"

"No!" The abbe threw off his wig, shook his head, and his hair, no
longer confined, fell in black masses around his manly face.

"It is the face of the Count of Monte Cristo!" exclaimed the procureur,
with a haggard expression.

"You are not exactly right, M. Procureur; you must go farther back."

"That voice, that voice!--where did I first hear it?"

"You heard it for the first time at Marseilles, twenty-three years ago,
the day of your marriage with Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran. Refer to your
papers."