nd so energetically, that on the second
restoration he was persecuted as a Bonapartist. Ten times, as I told
you, he came to see Dantes' father, and offered to receive him in his
own house; and the night or two before his death, as I have already
said, he left his purse on the mantelpiece, with which they paid the old
man's debts, and buried him decently; and so Edmond's father died, as
he had lived, without doing harm to any one. I have the purse still by
me--a large one, made of red silk."

"And," asked the abbe, "is M. Morrel still alive?"

"Yes," replied Caderousse.

"In that case," replied the abbe, "he should be rich, happy."

Caderousse smiled bitterly. "Yes, happy as myself," said he.

"What! M. Morrel unhappy?" exclaimed the abbe.

"He is reduced almost to the last extremity--nay, he is almost at the
point of dishonor."

"How?"

"Yes," continued Caderousse, "so it is; after five and twenty years
of labor, after having acquired a most honorable name in the trade of
Marseilles, M. Morrel is utterly ruined; he has lost five ships in two
years, has suffered by the bankruptcy of three large houses, and his
only hope now is in that very Pharaon which poor Dantes commanded, and
which is expected from the Indies with a cargo of cochineal and indigo.
If this ship founders, like the others, he is a ruined man."

"And has the unfortunate man wife or children?" inquired the abbe.

"Yes, he has a wife, who through everything has behaved like an angel;
he has a daughter, who was about to marry the man she loved, but whose
family now will not allow him to wed the daughter of a ruined man; he
has, besides, a son, a lieutenant in the army; and, as you may suppose,
all this, instead of lessening, only augments his sorrows. If he were
alone in the world he would blow out his brains, and there would be an
end."

"Horrible!" ejaculated the priest.

"And it is thus heaven recompenses virtue, sir," added Caderousse. "You
see, I, who never did a bad action but that I have told you of--am in
destitution, with my poor wife dying of fever before my very eyes, and
I unable to do anything in the world for her; I shall die of hunger, as
old Dantes did, while Fernand and Danglars are rolling in wealth."

"How is that?"

"Because their deeds have brought them good fortune, while honest men
have been reduced to misery."

"What has become of Danglars, the instigator, and therefore the most
guilty?"

"What has become of him?