The Count of Monte Cristo

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or, if you prefer it, retire to the country and only return to Paris
when our friends have reconciled your family." Valentine shook her head.
"I feared it, Maximilian," said she; "it is the counsel of a madman, and
I should be more mad than you, did I not stop you at once with the word
'Impossible, impossible!'"

"You will then submit to what fate decrees for you without even
attempting to contend with it?" said Morrel sorrowfully. "Yes,--if I
die!"

"Well, Valentine," resumed Maximilian, "I can only say again that you
are right. Truly, it is I who am mad, and you prove to me that passion
blinds the most well-meaning. I appreciate your calm reasoning. It is
then understood that to-morrow you will be irrevocably promised to
M. Franz d'Epinay, not only by that theatrical formality invented to
heighten the effect of a comedy called the signature of the contract,
but your own will?"