The Count of Monte Cristo

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drawing-room," said he to Baptistin, while he led the beautiful Greek
girl to a private staircase.

We must explain this visit, which although expected by Monte Cristo, is
unexpected to our readers. While Mercedes, as we have said, was making
a similar inventory of her property to Albert's, while she was arranging
her jewels, shutting her drawers, collecting her keys, to leave
everything in perfect order, she did not perceive a pale and sinister
face at a glass door which threw light into the passage, from which
everything could be both seen and heard. He who was thus looking,
without being heard or seen, probably heard and saw all that passed in
Madame de Morcerf's apartments. From that glass door the pale-faced
man went to the count's bedroom and raised with a constricted hand the
curtain of a window overlooking the court-yard. He remained there ten
minutes, motionless and dumb, listening to the beating of his own heart.
For him those ten minutes were very long. It was then Albert, returning
from his meeting with the count, perceived his father watching for his