The Count of Monte Cristo

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he felt. "You understand, then, that if it were so," said he, rising in
his turn, and approaching the baroness, to speak to her in a lower tone,
"we are lost. This child lives, and some one knows it lives--some one is
in possession of our secret; and since Monte Cristo speaks before us of
a child disinterred, when that child could not be found, it is he who is
in possession of our secret."

"Just God, avenging God!" murmured Madame Danglars.

Villefort's only answer was a stifled groan.

"But the child--the child, sir?" repeated the agitated mother.

"How I have searched for him," replied Villefort, wringing his hands;
"how I have called him in my long sleepless nights; how I have longed
for royal wealth to purchase a million of secrets from a million of men,
and to find mine among them! At last, one day, when for the hundredth