Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 5).djvu/160

140 had been obliged to seclude himself more than ever, to evade the enormous number of applications presented to him for the purpose of obtaining tickets of admission to the court on the day of trial. And then so short a time had elapsed since the death of poor Valentine, and the gloom which over-shadowed the house was so recent, that no one wondered to see the father so absorbed in his professional duties, which were the only means he had of dissipating his grief.

Once only had Villefort seen his father; it was the day after that upon which Bertuccio had paid his second visit to Benedetto, when the latter was to learn his father's name on the day after that which was Sunday,—once only, we repeat, Villefort had seen his father; it was when the magistrate, harassed and fatigued, had descended to the garden of his hotel, and in a gloomy mood, similar to that in which Tarquin lopped off the tallest poppies, he began knocking off with his cane the long and dying branches of the rose-trees, which, placed along the walks, seemed like the specters of the brilliant flowers which had bloomed in the past season.

More than once he had reached that part of the garden where the famous paling stood overlooking the deserted inclosure; and always returning by the same path, he recommenced his walk, at the same pace and with the same gesture, when he accidentally turned his eyes toward the house, where he heard the sound of his son playing noisily, who had returned from school to spend the Sunday and Monday with his mother.

While doing so, he observed Noirtier at one of the open windows, where the old man had been placed that he might enjoy the last rays of a sun which yet yielded some heat, and was now shining upon the dying flowers and red leaves of the creeper which twined round the balcony.

The eye of the old man was riveted upon a spot which Villefort could scarcely distinguish. His glance was so full of hate, of ferocity, and savage impatience, that Villefort turned out of the path he had been pursuing, to see upon what person this dark look was directed.

Then he saw beneath a thick clump of linden-trees, which were nearly divested of foliage, Madame de Villefort sitting with a book in her hand, the perusal of which she frequently interrupted to smile upon her son, or to throw back his elastic ball, which he obstinately threw from the drawing-room into the garden.

Villefort became pale; he understood the old man's meaning.

Noirtier continued to look at the same object, but suddenly his glance was carried from the wife to the husband, and Villefort himself had to submit to the searching investigation of those eyes, which, while changing their object, and even their language, had lost none of their