The Count of Monte Cristo

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kill me--would drive me like a madman to dig my heart out with my
finger-nails! And if you were mistaken, doctor--if it were not my
daughter--if I should come one day, pale as a spectre, and say to you,
'Assassin, you have killed my child!'--hold--if that should happen,
although I am a Christian, M. d'Avrigny, I should kill myself."

"Well," said the doctor, after a moment's silence, "I will wait."
Villefort looked at him as if he had doubted his words. "Only,"
continued M. d'Avrigny, with a slow and solemn tone, "if any one falls
ill in your house, if you feel yourself attacked, do not send for me,
for I will come no more. I will consent to share this dreadful secret
with you, but I will not allow shame and remorse to grow and increase in
my conscience, as crime and misery will in your house."

"Then you abandon me, doctor?"

"Yes, for I can follow you no farther, and I only stop at the foot of