The Count of Monte Cristo

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"Next day--next day, sir, you must have seen plain enough what they had
been doing, yet you said nothing, though you were present when Dantes
was arrested."

"Yes, sir, I was there, and very anxious to speak; but Danglars
restrained me. 'If he should really be guilty,' said he, 'and did really
put in to the Island of Elba; if he is really charged with a letter for
the Bonapartist committee at Paris, and if they find this letter upon
him, those who have supported him will pass for his accomplices.' I
confess I had my fears, in the state in which politics then were, and I
held my tongue. It was cowardly, I confess, but it was not criminal."

"I understand--you allowed matters to take their course, that was all."

"Yes, sir," answered Caderousse; "and remorse preys on me night and day.
I often ask pardon of God, I swear to you, because this action, the only
one with which I have seriously to reproach myself in all my life, is