Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 5).djvu/69

Rh ing no traces remained of the nocturnal phantoms, who disappeared with the daylight.

Behind the door a human figure appeared; but she was too familiar with such apparitions to be alarmed, and therefore only stared, hoping to recognize Morrel. The figure advanced toward the bed, and appeared to listen with profound attention. At this moment a ray of light glanced across the face of the midnight visitor.

"It is not he!" she murmured, and waited, convinced that, as in a dream, the man would disappear or assume some other form. Still, she felt her pulse, and, finding it throb violently, she remembered that the best method of dispelling such illusions was to drink, for a draught of the beverage prepared by the doctor to calm her nerves seemed while reducing the fever to cause a reaction of the brain, and for a short time after the drink she suffered less. Valentine therefore reached her hand toward the glass, but as soon as her trembling arm left the bed the apparition advanced more quickly toward her, and approached the young girl so closely that she fancied she heard his breath, and felt the pressure of his hand.

This time the illusion, or rather the reality, surpassed anything Valentine had before experienced; she began to believe herself really alive and awake, and the belief that her reason was this time not deceived made her shudder. The pressure she felt was evidently intended to arrest her arm, and she slowly withdrew it. Then the figure, from whom she could not detach her eyes, and who appeared more protecting than menacing, took the glass, and, walking toward the night-light, held it up, as if to test its transparency. This did not seem sufficient; the man, or rather the phantom—for he trod so softly that no sound was heard—then poured out about a spoonful into the glass, and drank it.

Valentine witnessed this scene with a sentiment of stupefaction. Every minute she had expected that it would vanish and give place to another vision; but the man, instead of dissolving like a shadow, again approached her, and said in an agitated voice: "Now you may drink."

Valentine shuddered. It was the first time one of these visions had ever addressed her in a living voice, and she was about to utter an exclamation. The man placed his finger on her lips.

"The Count of Monte-Cristo!" she murmured.

It was easy to see the last struggle of doubt with conviction; her eyes started with terror, her hands trembled, and she rapidly drew the bed-clothes closer to her. Still, the presence of Monte-Cristo at such an hour, his mysterious, fantastic, and inexplicable entrance into her room through the wall, seemed impossibilities to her shattered reason.