Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 4).djvu/122

 to you if I am murdered?—Are you my friend?—Are you a man?—Have you a heart?—No, you are a physician!—Well, I tell you I will not drag my daughter before a tribunal, and give her up to the executioner! The bare idea would kill me,—would drive me like a madman to dig my heart out with my finger-nails! And if you were mistaken, doctor!—if it were not my daughter!—If I should come one day, pale as a spectre, and say to you, 'Assassin! you have killed my child!' Hold! if that should happen, although I am a Christian, M. d'Avrigny, I should kill myself."

"Well," said the doctor, after a moment's silence; "I will wait."

Villefort looked at him as if he had doubted his words.

"Only," continued d'Avrigny, with a slow and solemn tone, "if any one falls ill in your house, if you feel yourself attacked, do not send for me, for I will come no more. I will consent to share this dreadful secret with you; but I will not allow shame and remorse to grow and increase in my conscience, as crime and misery will in your house."

"Then you abandon me, doctor?"

"Yes, for I can follow you no farther; and I only stop at the foot of the scaffold. Some further discovery will be made, which will bring this dreadful tragedy to a close. Adieu!"

"I entreat you, doctor!"

"All the horrors that disturb my thoughts make your house odious and fatal. Adieu, sir."

"One word,—one single word more, doctor! You go leaving me in all the horror of my situation, after increasing it by what you have revealed to me. But what will be reported of the sudden death of this poor old servant?"

"True," said d'Avrigny; "we will return."

The doctor went out first, followed by Villefort; the terrified servants were on the stairs and in the passage where the doctor would pass.

"Sir," said d'Avrigny to Villefort, so loud that all might hear, "poor Barrois has led too sedentary a life of late; accustomed formerly to ride on horseback, or in the carriage, to the four corners of Europe, the monotonous walk round that arm-chair has killed him: his blood has thickened; he was stout, had a short, thick neck, he was attacked with apoplexy, and I was called in too late. Apropos," added he, in a low tone, "take care to throw away that cup of syrup of violets in the ashes."

The doctor, without shaking hands with Villefort, without adding a word to what he had said, went out amid the tears and lamentations of the whole household. The same evening all Villefort's servants, who