The Count of Monte Cristo

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Albert seized them with a convulsive hand, tore them in pieces, and
trembling lest the least vestige should escape and one day appear to
confront him, he approached the wax-light, always kept burning for
cigars, and burned every fragment. "Dear, excellent friend," murmured
Albert, still burning the papers.

"Let all be forgotten as a sorrowful dream," said Beauchamp; "let it
vanish as the last sparks from the blackened paper, and disappear as the
smoke from those silent ashes."

"Yes, yes," said Albert, "and may there remain only the eternal
friendship which I promised to my deliverer, which shall be transmitted
to our children's children, and shall always remind me that I owe my
life and the honor of my name to you,--for had this been known, oh,
Beauchamp, I should have destroyed myself; or,--no, my poor mother! I
could not have killed her by the same blow,--I should have fled from my
country."