The Count of Monte Cristo

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return to us.' The old man died, as I have told you; had he lived,
Mercedes, perchance, had not become the wife of another, for he would
have been there to reproach her infidelity. Fernand saw this, and when
he learned of the old man's death he returned. He was now a lieutenant.
At his first coming he had not said a word of love to Mercedes; at the
second he reminded her that he loved her. Mercedes begged for six months
more in which to await and mourn for Edmond."

"So that," said the abbe, with a bitter smile, "that makes eighteen
months in all. What more could the most devoted lover desire?" Then he
murmured the words of the English poet, "'Frailty, thy name is woman.'"

"Six months afterwards," continued Caderousse, "the marriage took place
in the church of Accoules."

"The very church in which she was to have married Edmond," murmured the
priest; "there was only a change of bride-grooms."