Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 5).djvu/72

52 "Oh! yes," she exclaimed, "I recognize the flavor of my nocturnal beverage which refreshed me so much, and seemed to ease my aching brain. Thank you, sir, thank you!"

"This is how you have lived during the last four nights, Valentine," said the count. "But, oh! how I passed that time! Oh! the wretched hours I have endured! the torture to which I have submitted when I saw the deadly poison poured into your glass, and how I trembled lest you would drink it before I could find time to throw it away!"

"Sir," said Valentine, at the height of her terror, "you say you endured tortures when you saw the deadly poison poured into my glass; but if you saw this, you must also have seen the person who poured it?"

"Yes."

Valentine raised herself in bed, and drew over her chest, which appeared whiter than snow, the embroidered cambric, still moist with the cold dews of delirium, to which were now added those of terror.

"You saw the person?" repeated the young girl.

"Yes," replied the count.

"That which you tell me is horrible, sir. You wish to make me believe something too dreadful. What! attempt to murder me in my father's house—in my room—on my bed of sickness? Oh! leave me, sir; you are tempting me; you make me doubt the goodness of Providence; it is impossible, it cannot be!"

"Are you the first that this hand has stricken? Have you not seen M. de Saint-Méran, Mme. de Saint-Méran, Barrois, all fall? Would not M. Noirtier also have fallen a victim, had not the treatment he has been pursuing for the last three years neutralized the effects of the poison?"

"Oh, Heaven!" said Valentine; "is this the reason why grandpapa has made me share all his beverages during the last month?"

"And have they all tasted of a slightly bitter flavor, like that of dried orange-peel?"

"Oh, yes! oh, yes!"

"Then that explains all," said Monte-Cristo. "Your grandfather knows, then, that a poisoner lives here; perhaps, he even suspects the person. He has been fortifying you, his beloved child, against the fatal effects of the poison, which would have failed from the constant habit of imbibing it. But even this would have availed little against a more deadly medium of death employed four days ago, which is generally but too fatal."

"But who, then, is this assassin, this murderer?"

"Let me also ask you a question. Have you never seen any one enter your room at night?"

"Oh! yes; I have frequently seen shadows pass close to me, approach,