h! my daughter, my daughter," he murmured, "soon will you also quit
me, and then I shall be alone, indeed! True, Esperance will remain,
but, generous, manly and heroic as he is, he can never fill the void
Zuleika will leave. Oh! Haydee, Haydee, my beloved wife, why were you
torn so ruthlessly from your husband's heart!"

Zuleika's dreams that night were rose-hued and delicious, and in all of
them the central figure was the youthful Roman Viscount.

When day dawned M. Dantes was still pacing his library.

CHAPTER VIII.

A VAST PRINTING HOUSE.

A street somewhat famous in Paris is the Rue Lepelletier, famous not for
its length, for its breadth, for the splendid edifices it exhibits, or
for the scenes and events it has witnessed, but famous for the exploits
beheld by its neighbors, and the magnificent structures by them
displayed. Not that the Rue Lepelletier can boast no fine edifices, for
the grand opera-house would give the loud lie to such an assertion. And
then there is the Foreign Office near by, the Hotel of the Minister of
Foreign Affairs at the corner of the Boulevard and the Rue des
Capucines, and other noted places.

But there is one structure on the Rue Lepelletier not very noticeable
save for its immense size and its ancient and dingy aspect, which has
witnessed more scenes and events, and is more important than all its
more splendid neighbors put together.

This edifice is of brick, five stories in height, and, as has been
intimated, is time-stained, storm-stained, smoke-stained and stained, it
would seem, by all other conceivable causes of stain, so begrimed and
dingy, yet so venerable and imposing, does it seem.

This vast and ancient pile can be said to represent no order of
architecture. Architectural elegance appears not to have been thought of
when it was designed, and yet the facade of the old building seems to
bear the same relation to the building itself as the face of an old man
bears to his body, and that face is full of character, as are the faces
of some men--sombre, sedate, serious, almost sinister in aspect. This
old face, too, seemed full of apertures, through which unceasing and
sleepless espionage could be kept up on the good citizens of the good
City of Paris. Doors, and especially windows, numberless, opened and
looked upon the street, and on a cul de sac at one end of the edifice.

One of the doors opening on the cul de sac, at its further extremity,
was broad, low, dark