The Count of Monte Cristo

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fixed on the clock; there were seven minutes left, that was all. The
hand moved on with incredible rapidity, he seemed to see its motion.

What passed in the mind of this man at the supreme moment of his agony
cannot be told in words. He was still comparatively young, he was
surrounded by the loving care of a devoted family, but he had convinced
himself by a course of reasoning, illogical perhaps, yet certainly
plausible, that he must separate himself from all he held dear in the
world, even life itself. To form the slightest idea of his feelings, one
must have seen his face with its expression of enforced resignation and
its tear-moistened eyes raised to heaven. The minute hand moved on.
The pistols were loaded; he stretched forth his hand, took one up, and
murmured his daughter's name. Then he laid it down seized his pen, and
wrote a few words. It seemed to him as if he had not taken a sufficient
farewell of his beloved daughter. Then he turned again to the clock,
counting time now not by minutes, but by seconds. He took up the deadly
weapon again, his lips parted and his eyes fixed on the clock, and then