Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 3).djvu/273

Rh "You understand, then, that if that were so," said he, rising in his turn, and approaching the baroness, to speak to her in a lower tone, "we are lost. This child lives, and some one knows it lives—some one is in possession of our secret; and since Monte-Cristo speaks before us of a child disinterred, when that child could not be found, it is he who is in possession of our secret."

"Just God, avenging God!" murmured Madame Danglars. Villefort's only answer was a species of groan.

"But the child—the child, sir?" repeated the agitated mother.

"How have I searched for him!" replied Villefort, wringing his hands; "how have I called him in my long sleepless nights! How have I longed for royal wealth to purchase a million of secrets from a million of men, and to find mine among them. At last, one day, when, for the hundredth time, I took up my spade, I asked myself again and again what the Corsican could have done with the child. A child encumbers a fugitive; perhaps, on perceiving it was still alive, he had thrown it into the river."

"Impossible!" cried Madame Danglars: "a man may murder another out of revenge, but he would not deliberately drown a child."

"Perhaps," continued Villefort, "he had put it in the foundling-hospital?"

"Oh, yes, yes!" cried the baroness; "my child is there!"

"I ran to the hospital, and learned that the same night the night—of the 20th of September—a child had been brought there, wrapped in part of a fine linen napkin, purposely torn in half. This portion of the napkin was marked with half a baron's crown, and the letter H."

"Truly, truly," said Madame Danglars, "all my linen is marked thus; Monsieur de Nargonne was a baron, arid my name is Hermirie. Thank God! my child was not then dead."

"No, it was not dead."

"And you can tell me so without fearing to make me die of joy, sir? Where is the child?"

Villefort shrugged his shoulders.

"Do I know!" said he; "and do you believe that if I knew I would relate to you all its trials and all its adventures as would a dramatist or a novel-writer? Alas! no, I know not. A woman, about six months after, came to claim it with the other half of the napkin. This woman gave all the requisite particulars, and it was intrusted to her."

"But you should have inquired for the woman; you should have traced her."

"And what do you think I did! I feigned a criminal process, and employed all the most acute bloodhounds and skillful agents in search of her. They traced her to Chalons, and there they lost her."