The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

"But can he understand you?"

"Yes."

"Oh," said Villefort, inexpressibly delighted to think that the
inquiries were to be made by him alone,--"oh, be satisfied, I can
understand my father." D'Avrigny took the young man's arm, and led
him out of the room. A more than deathlike silence then reigned in
the house. At the end of a quarter of an hour a faltering footstep
was heard, and Villefort appeared at the door of the apartment where
d'Avrigny and Morrel had been staying, one absorbed in meditation, the
other in grief. "You can come," he said, and led them back to Noirtier.
Morrel looked attentively on Villefort. His face was livid, large drops
rolled down his face, and in his fingers he held the fragments of a
quill pen which he had torn to atoms.

"Gentlemen," he said in a hoarse voice, "give me your word of honor that