Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 1).djvu/48

28 clasped in one of his own, he extended the other to the Catalan with a cordial air. But Fernand, instead of responding to this amiable gesture, remained mute and motionless as a statue. Edmond then cast his eyes scrutinizingly at Mercédès, agitated and embarrassed, and then again on Fernand, gloomy and menacing. This look told him all, and his brow became suffused and angry.

"I did not know, when I came with such haste to you, that I was to meet an enemy here."

"An enemy!" cried Mercédès, with an angry look at her cousin. "An enemy in my house, do you say, Edmond! If I believed that, I would place my arm under yours and go with you to Marseilles, leaving the house to return to it no more."

Fernand's eye darted lightning. "And should any misfortune occur to you, dear Edmond," she continued, with the same implacable calmness which proved to Fernand that the young girl had read the very innermost depths of his sinister thought, "if misfortune should occur to you, I would ascend the highest point of the Cape de Morgion, and cast myself headlong from it on the rocks below." Fernand became deadly pale.

"But you are deceived, Edmond," she continued. "You have no enemy here—there is no one but Fernand, my brother, who will grasp your hand as a devoted friend."

And at these words the young girl fixed her imperious look on the Catalan, who, as if fascinated by it, came slowly toward Edmond, and offered him his hand. His hatred, like a powerless though furious wave, was broken against the strong ascendency which Mercédès exercised over him. Scarcely, however, had he touched Edmond's hand than he felt he had done all he could do, and rushed hastily out of the house.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, running furiously and plunging his hands in his hair—"Oh! who will deliver me from this man? Wretched—wretched that I am!"

"Halloo, Catalan! Halloo, Fernand! where are you running to?" exclaimed a voice.

The young man stopped suddenly, looked around him, and perceived Caderousse sitting at table with Danglars under an arbor.

"Well," said Caderousse, "why don't you come? Are you really in such a hurry that you have no time to say 'how do' to your friends?"

"Particularly when they have still a full bottle before them," added Danglars. Fernand looked at them both with a stupefied air, but did not say a word.

"He looks sheepish," said Danglars, pushing Caderousse with his knee. "Are we mistaken, and is Dantès triumphant in spite of all we have believed?"