The Count of Monte Cristo

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have ever since been asking your heart and sounding your conscience to
know if you ought to expose or conceal this secret. Why do you torment
them? 'Conscience, what hast thou to do with me?' as Sterne said. My
dear fellow, let them sleep on, if they are asleep; let them grow pale
in their drowsiness, if they are disposed to do so, and pray do you
remain in peace, who have no remorse to disturb you." Deep grief was
depicted on Morrel's features; he seized Monte Cristo's hand. "But it is
beginning again, I say!"

"Well," said the Count, astonished at his perseverance, which he could
not understand, and looking still more earnestly at Maximilian, "let it
begin again,--it is like the house of the Atreidae; [*] God has condemned
them, and they must submit to their punishment. They will all disappear,
like the fabrics children build with cards, and which fall, one by one,
under the breath of their builder, even if there are two hundred of
them. Three months since it was M. de Saint-Meran; Madame de Saint-Meran
two months since; the other day it was Barrois; to-day, the old