The Count of Monte Cristo

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approached the window, and saw his father get into it, and drive away.
The door was scarcely closed when Albert bent his steps to his mother's
room; and, no one being there to announce him, he advanced to her
bed-chamber, and distressed by what he saw and guessed, stopped for one
moment at the door. As if the same idea had animated these two beings,
Mercedes was doing the same in her apartments that he had just done in
his. Everything was in order,--laces, dresses, jewels, linen, money, all
were arranged in the drawers, and the countess was carefully collecting
the keys. Albert saw all these preparations and understood them, and
exclaiming, "My mother!" he threw his arms around her neck.

The artist who could have depicted the expression of these two
countenances would certainly have made of them a beautiful picture. All
these proofs of an energetic resolution, which Albert did not fear on
his own account, alarmed him for his mother. "What are you doing?" asked
he.