The Count of Monte Cristo

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"I bought it for two hundred thousand francs, madame," said Monte
Cristo; "but that is a trifle, since it enables me to justify myself to
you."

"And the result of that letter"--

"You well know, madame, was my arrest; but you do not know how long that
arrest lasted. You do not know that I remained for fourteen years within
a quarter of a league of you, in a dungeon in the Chateau d'If. You do
not know that every day of those fourteen years I renewed the vow of
vengeance which I had made the first day; and yet I was not aware that
you had married Fernand, my calumniator, and that my father had died of
hunger!"

"Can it be?" cried Mercedes, shuddering.

"That is what I heard on leaving my prison fourteen years after I had