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THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO

downfall. Five months after he had been separated from his son, and almost at the very hour at which he was arrested, he breathed his last in Mercédès’ arms. Morrel paid the expenses of his funeral and a few small debts the poor old man had contracted.

There was more than benevolence in this action; there was courage; for to assist, even on his death-bed, the father of so dangerous a Bona partist as Dantès was stigmatized as a crime.