The Count of Monte Cristo

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culpable."

"True, excellency, that was the crime, the real crime, for in that
I acted like a coward. My first duty, directly I had succeeded in
recalling the babe to life, was to restore it to its mother; but, in
order to do so, I must have made close and careful inquiry, which would,
in all probability, have led to my own apprehension; and I clung to
life, partly on my sister's account, and partly from that feeling
of pride inborn in our hearts of desiring to come off untouched and
victorious in the execution of our vengeance. Perhaps, too, the natural
and instinctive love of life made me wish to avoid endangering my
own. And then, again, I am not as brave and courageous as was my poor
brother." Bertuccio hid his face in his hands as he uttered these words,
while Monte Cristo fixed on him a look of inscrutable meaning. After
a brief silence, rendered still more solemn by the time and place, the
count said, in a tone of melancholy wholly unlike his usual manner, "In
order to bring this conversation to a fitting termination (the last we