"Listen! this is not an order, but a counsel, I give you."
"Speak, and I will follow your advice."
"I shall detain you until this evening in the Palais de Justice. Should any one else interrogate you, tell him all you have told me, only do not breathe a word of this letter."
"I promise."
It was Villefort who seemed to entreat, and the prisoner who re-assured him.
"You see," continued he, looking at the ashes which still retained the shape of the paper and were dancing above the flames, "the letter is destroyed; you and I alone know of its existence; should you, therefore, be questioned, deny all knowledge of it."
"Fear nothing; I will deny it."
"Good," said Villefort, laying his hand on the bell-rope, and then checking himself.
"It was the only letter you had?"
"It was."
"Swear it."
"I swear it."
Villefort rang. An agent of police entered. Villefort whispered some words in his ear, to which the officer replied by a motion of his head.
"Follow him," said Villefort to Dantès. Dantès saluted Villefort and retired. Hardly had the door closed, than Villefort threw himself into a chair, nearly fainting.
"Alas! alas!" murmured he, "on what chances life and fortune depend! if the procureur de roi had been at Marseilles! if the judge of instruction had been called instead of me, I should have been ruined. This paper, this accursed letter, would have destroyed all my hopes. Oh! my father, will you always be an obstacle to my happiness, and have I forever to struggle against your past?"
Suddenly a light seemed to pass over his spirit and illuminate his face; a smile played round his mouth, and his lips became unclenched, and his haggard eyes seemed to pause on some new thought.
"This will do," said he, "and from this letter, which might have ruined me, I will make my fortune."
And after having assured himself the prisoner was gone, the deputy procureur hastened to the house of his bride.
