The Son of Monte-Cristo The Son Of Monte Cristo Part 80

They remained thus, silent and motionless. From the touch of the Vicomte's hand Jane seemed to experience profound relief. Is it not certain that between two persons a certain magnetic communication may take place--an electric fluid may pa.s.s from one to the other, making the two momentarily one?

Esperance bowed his head and pressed his lips on Jane's hand. Then the young girl opened her eyes. The fever was gone. Her glorious eyes had regained all their softness, and her pulse beat more regularly.

"Jane! Jane!" whispered the young man. It seemed to him that he felt a gentle pressure of her fingers. "You hear me?" he said. "Will you allow me to remain near you? If you only knew how much I suffer in seeing your sufferings, and how gladly I would spare you a pang!" Again the little quivering pressure.

"When I saw you the other night it did not seem to me that it was the first time. I felt as if I had seen you in my dreams. Jane, why did you wish to die?"

Was she listening? Did she hear him? A delicious torpor had taken possession of the girl. She thought she was dreaming, and was afraid to move lest she should awaken. The past seemed far away.

He continued:

"Jane, before I saw you I did not live. I was always sad. What did it matter to me the luxury with which I was surrounded? I have always felt singularly alone, my life was incomplete. But now I feel as if it were well rounded. You have suffered, but now all that is over. You will tell me all, because we are to have no secrets from each other. We will leave Paris, and find some quiet retreat together."

She did not speak, but from under her half-closed eyes a tear stole down her cheek. Esperance kissed the tear away. She smiled faintly, and then fell into a sweet sleep. Seeing this, Esperance rose and softly left the room.

In the ante-room Madame Caraman lay asleep on the sofa. Esperance smiled, but as he knew that Jane was safe, he did not arouse her nurse.

He went to his room. Hardly had the sound of his footsteps died away than the portiere is lifted in yonder corner, and a dark form appears.

It was a man. His face was hidden by a black vail. In his hand was a white handkerchief and a gla.s.s bottle. He stole to the bed so softly that not a sound was heard.

Who is this man? It was thus that Monte-Cristo once entered the room of Valentine de Villefort. But this was not Monte-Cristo. As he reached the bed he extended his arm and held to the girl's face the handkerchief, from which exhaled a blue vapor.

Jane was breathing naturally. Suddenly her whole form quivered, then came immobility. Her limbs straighten, the rose fades from her cheek, her brow becomes like marble. The man lifted the inert form in his arms, and slowly, with infinite precautions, he moved toward the portiere, which he pushes aside and disappears.

Ah! Madame Caraman, ah! Esperance, you little know what is going on!

This man is Benedetto. His revenge has begun!

And in that empty room there is now no other sound than the ticking of the clock.

CHAPTER LVII.

THEY MUST BE SAVED!

My readers have not forgotten the romantic episode that followed Jane's suicide. How happened it that our old friends Fanfar and Bob.i.+.c.hel were near and able to save the life of Sanselme?

It is a very simple matter. Monte-Cristo had said to Fanfar, "I trust my son to you. You love me, love him, also. Be to him what you have been to me."

"Rely on me," Fanfar said, and Monte-Cristo went away, confiding in himself, in everything, and still more in the strange fatality which had always served him.

Fanfar kept his word. He watched everything that Esperance did. He had been told, also, not to permit this surveillance to be suspected unless some real danger made it necessary to disclose it.

The evening that Esperance went to Goutran's, Fanfar, accompanied by the inseparable Bob.i.+.c.hel, had seen the young man enter his friend's house, he had seen him place Jane in the carriage, and finally had watched him walk away with Goutran.

Could there be anything more rea.s.suring? Fanfar thought not, and in a state of perfect satisfaction they walked along the left sh.o.r.e of the Seine, where Fanfar had a little house in the Rue Bellecha.s.se.

They were talking earnestly, when they heard loud cries for aid. They instantly plunged into the river and swam in the direction of the cries.

They were successful in their efforts, and saved the lives of both the man and the woman. Sanselme, however, had a brain fever, and the woman, Fanfar discovered, was insane. With her it was a pa.s.sing delirium.

Fanfar was greatly puzzled to know what to do with her. Who was she?

Whence came she? There was nothing about her person which would elucidate the mystery. It was possible that she had escaped from some hospital, and Fanfar went to the Prefecture to make inquiries, but no such disappearance was registered there.

Fanfar naturally felt that there must be some connection between these two persons. Some frightful tragedy had been enacted. But he also felt that absolute secrecy was due the two unfortunates, till at last it was plain that there was no danger in revealing the adventure.

Days elapsed. Sanselme had terrible attacks of frenzy, and the woman, when she was able to move, had risen from her bed and gone to the door of her room, where she stood with terror and anguish imprinted on every feature, and if any one entered the room she would press both hands on her breast and utter a terrible shriek.

Finally Fanfar's wife had called him to see a scar on the breast of the unfortunate creature. She had certainly received a terrible wound, but when and where? The scar was not a new one.

Fanfar had sent Bob.i.+.c.hel to the Vicomte's, for he had reproached himself that he had neglected Esperance in his interest for these two strangers.

He sat near Sanselme's bed, and in the next room the mad woman was asleep, crouching on the floor near the door.

Fanfar looked at the man before him, and his unerring instinct told him that this livid, worn face had known not only great sorrow, but terrible remorse.

Sanselme said something. Fanfar leaned over him to hear more distinctly.

"My daughter; dead! dead!"

And these words were repeated over and over again. What did this mean?

The woman Sanselme had saved was older than he; she could not be his daughter.

Fanfar said in distinct but soothing tones, "You have a daughter? You have lost her?"

"Yes, my Jane!"

Sanselme flung himself from one side of the bed to the other in intense agony, and Fanfar asked question after question. He could not tear from the man the smallest information.

Having taken a sedative the sick man fell asleep, but it was plain that his dreams were troubled. Fanfar took up a book, when he heard the door-bell, and Bob.i.+.c.hel suddenly appeared all out of breath. He dropped on a chair, and seemed to be in great trouble.

"What is the matter?" asked Fanfar.

"Oh! such a dreadful thing has happened to Monte-Cristo's son!"

"To the Vicomte!" cried Fanfar, leaping from his chair. He seized Bob.i.+.c.hel's arm rather roughly, and shaking it, cried, "Will you speak?"

"Yes, master, but I don't know how to tell you that the Vicomte has gone away."

"Gone away, and what of that?"

"But he has disappeared!"

"Who says so?"

"Old Madame Caraman and Coucon."