The Count of Monte Cristo

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interest, I say, can he take in discovering a gloomy, mysterious, and
useless fact like this? However, among all the incoherent details given
to me by the Abbe Busoni and by Lord Wilmore, by that friend and that
enemy, one thing appears certain and clear in my opinion--that in
no period, in no case, in no circumstance, could there have been any
contact between him and me."

But Villefort uttered words which even he himself did not believe. He
dreaded not so much the revelation, for he could reply to or deny its
truth;--he cared little for that mene, tekel, upharsin, which appeared
suddenly in letters of blood upon the wall;--but what he was really
anxious for was to discover whose hand had traced them. While he
was endeavoring to calm his fears,--and instead of dwelling upon the
political future that had so often been the subject of his ambitious
dreams, was imagining a future limited to the enjoyments of home, in
fear of awakening the enemy that had so long slept,--the noise of a
carriage sounded in the yard, then he heard the steps of an aged person