"The same," said Debray. "She returned to Marseilles with her son
Albert. You remember Albert and his strange conduct in the duel with the
Count of Monte-Cristo?"

"One could hardly forget such chivalric generosity, such magnificent
magnanimity and such sublime self-control as were exhibited by the young
man on that occasion!" said Beauchamp. "It is to be hoped he was not
equally forbearing toward the Arabs in his African campaigns, although,
as his name has never been seen or heard since he entered the army, in
all probability he was."

"Well, well," cried the Secretary, impatiently, "the Countess retired to
Marseilles, and there she is said to have resided in utter seclusion, in
company only with Morrel's beautiful wife, devoting the vast wealth of
the deceased Count to philanthropic objects, having received it, as his
widow, only with the understanding it should be thus bestowed."

"But the rumor was," said Beauchamp, "and indeed I was so assured by M.
de Boville himself, Receiver-General of the Hospitals, at the time, that
the Countess gave all the Count's fortune to the hospitals, and that he
himself registered the deed of gift."

"Oh! that was only some twelve or thirteen hundred thousand francs,"
said Debray. "Three months after her settlement at Marseilles, in a
small house in the Allees de Meillan, said to be her own by maternal
inheritance, a letter came to her from Thomson and French, of Rome,
stating that there was a deposit in their house, to the credit of the
estate of the late Count, of the enormous sum of two millions of francs,
subject to her sole control and order, as the Count's only heir, in the
absence of his son."

"Two millions of francs!" cried the two young men in a breath.

"Even so, Messieurs," said Debray. "The story does sound rather
oriental; but I have reason to know that it is entirely true, for I made
diligent inquiry about it when last at Marseilles."

"And what took you to Marseilles, Lucien?" asked the Count
significantly.

"The Ministry," replied Debray, with evident confusion, coloring deeply.

"But why does not the Countess marry again?" asked Chateau-Renaud,
surveying her faultless form and face through his glass. "In the prime
of life, rich, and, despite her past troubles, most exquisitely
beautiful, it is strange she don't make herself and some one else
happy!"

"Especially as no one could ever accuse her of having very desperately
loved her dear first husband," adde