The Count of Monte Cristo

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and refreshed his memory. "To-day," he said with an effort,--"to-day the
man who holds the blade of justice must strike wherever there is guilt."
Involuntarily his eyes wandered towards the window of Noirtier's room,
where he had seen him the preceding night. The curtain was drawn, and
yet the image of his father was so vivid to his mind that he addressed
the closed window as though it had been open, and as if through the
opening he had beheld the menacing old man. "Yes," he murmured,--"yes,
be satisfied."

His head dropped upon his chest, and in this position he paced his
study; then he threw himself, dressed as he was, upon a sofa, less to
sleep than to rest his limbs, cramped with cold and study. By degrees
every one awoke. Villefort, from his study, heard the successive noises
which accompany the life of a house,--the opening and shutting of doors,
the ringing of Madame de Villefort's bell, to summon the waiting-maid,
mingled with the first shouts of the child, who rose full of the
enjoyment of his age. Villefort also rang; his new valet brought him the