Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 3).djvu/178

158 “What!” said the notary, “do you not intend making Mademoiselle Valentine de Villefort your residuary legatee?”

"No.”

“You are not making any mistake, are you?” said the notary; “you really mean to declare that such is not your intention?”

“No, no.”

Valentine raised her head; she was struck dumb with astonishment. It was not so much the conviction that she was disinherited which caused her grief, but her total inability to account for the feelings which had provoked her grandfather to such an act; but Noirtier looked at her with so much affectionate tenderness that she exclaimed:

“Oh, grandpapa! I see now that it is only your fortune of which you deprive me; you still leave me the love which I have always enjoyed.”

“Ah, ves, most assuredly!” said the eyes of the paralytic; for he closed them with an expression that Valentine could not mistake.

“Thank you! thank you!” murmured she. The old man’s declaration that Valentine was not the destined inheritor of his fortune had excited the hopes of Madame de Villefort; she gradually approached the invalid, and said:

“Then, doubtless: dear M. Noirtier, you intend leaving your fortune to your grandson, Edward de Villefort?”

The winking of the eyes which answered this speech was most decided and terrible, and expressed a feeling almost amounting to hatred.

“No!” said the notary; “then, perhaps, it is to your son, M. de Villefort?”

“No.” The two notaries looked at each other in mute astonishment.

Villefort and his wife blushed, the one from shame, the other from anger.

“What have we all done, then, dear grandpapa?” said Valentine; “you no longer seem to love any of us?”

The old man’s eye passed rapidly from Villefort and his wife, and rested on Valentine with a look of unutterable fondness.

“Well,” said she; “if you love me, grandpapa, try and bring that love to bear upon your actions at this present moment. You know me well enough to be quite sure that I have never thought of your fortune; besides, they say I am already rich in right of my mother, too rich, even. Explain yourself, then.”

Noirtier fixed his intelligent eye on Valentine’s hand.

“My hand?” said she.

“Yes.”

“Her hand!” exclaimed every one.

“Oh, gentlemen! you see it is all useless, and that my father’s mind is really impaired,” said Villefort.