The Count of Monte Cristo

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had passed many an anxious hour. In order to meet the payments then due;
he had collected all his resources, and, fearing lest the report of his
distress should get bruited abroad at Marseilles when he was known to be
reduced to such an extremity, he went to the Beaucaire fair to sell his
wife's and daughter's jewels and a portion of his plate. By this means
the end of the month was passed, but his resources were now exhausted.
Credit, owing to the reports afloat, was no longer to be had; and to
meet the one hundred thousand francs due on the 10th of the present
month, and the one hundred thousand francs due on the 15th of the next
month to M. de Boville, M. Morrel had, in reality, no hope but the
return of the Pharaon, of whose departure he had learnt from a vessel
which had weighed anchor at the same time, and which had already arrived
in harbor. But this vessel which, like the Pharaon, came from Calcutta,
had been in for a fortnight, while no intelligence had been received of
the Pharaon.

Such was the state of affairs when, the day after his interview with M.