Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 5).djvu/60

40 she would see him the next day, and if she could not make him fail in his duties as a magistrate, she would, at least, obtain all the indulgence he could allow. She would invoke the past, recall old recollections; she would supplicate him by the remembrance of guilty, yet happy days. M. de Villefort would stifle the affair; he had only to turn his eyes on one side, and allow Andrea to fly, and only pursue the crime under that shadow of guilt called contempt of court. And after this reasoning she slept easily.

At nine o'clock next morning she rose, and without ringing for her maid, or giving the least sign of her existence, she dressed herself in the same simple style as on the previous night; then, running downstairs, she left the hotel, walked to the Rue de Provence, called a fiacre, and drove to M. de Villefort's house.

For the last month this wretched house had presented the gloomy appearance of a lazaretto infected with the plague. Some of the apartments were closed within and without; the shutters were only opened to admit a minute's air, showing the scared face of a footman, and immediately afterward the window would be closed, like a grave-stone falling on a sepulchre; and the neighbors would say to each other in a low voice, "Shall we to-day see another bier leave the house of M. le procureur du roi?"

Madame Danglars involuntarily shuddered at the aspect of the desolate house; descending from the fiacre, she approached the door with trembling knees, and rang the bell. Three times did the bell ring with a dull, heavy sound, seeming to participate in the general sadness, before the concierge appeared and peeped through the door, which he opened just wide enough to allow his words to be heard. He saw a lady, a fashionable, elegantly-dressed lady, and yet the door remained almost closed.

"Do you intend opening the door?" said the baroness.

"First, madame, who are you?"

"Who am I? You know me well enough."

"We no longer know any one, madame."

"You must be mad, my friend," said the baroness.

"Where do you come from?"

"Oh! this is too much!"

"Madame, these are my orders; excuse me. Your name?"

"The Baroness Danglars: you have seen me twenty times."

"Possibly, madame. And now, what do you want?"

"Oh, how extraordinary! I shall complain to M. de Villefort of the impertinence of his servants."

"Madame, this is precaution, not impertinence; no one enters here